Former Irish youth international O’Neill signs with Leyton Orient

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The 21-year-old has signed a two-and-a-half-year deal for Leyton Orient and becomes the club’s second addition of the January transfer window. 

O’Neill has been with Fulham since 2016 after switching from Brentford to join the Fulham academy. 

Despite heavily featuring for Fulham U21 in Premier League 2 last year, he failed to breakthrough at first team level for the Cottagers. 

In 2023, the winger was on loan with Derry City making 19 appearances in the Premier Division and scoring once in a 4-0 win against UCD. 

He was also a key figure in Jim Crawford’s U21 side that came narrowly close to reaching the U21 European Championships in 2023, losing the play-off to Israel on penalties. 

O’Neill scored vital goals along the way to the play-off including scoring the winner against Sweden in November 2021 at Tallaght Stadium. 

“I’m really excited to be starting the next chapter of my career at Leyton Orient, a club that feels like it has got real momentum behind it at the moment.”, said O’Neill when speaking to the Leyton Orient media team.

“I know that this is the right time for me to leave the nest of academy football. I had a good taste of senior football last season and now I’m ready to challenge myself in League One. 

I like to play wide, get on the ball, and create lots of chances for myself and my teammates.” 

Orient head coach Richie Wellens said he was ‘pleased’ to get the transfer completed. 



“Ollie is an exciting young player and we are really pleased to get him on board. He is someone that we have been aware of for a while and we were really impressed with him in our EFL Trophy game against Fulham earlier this season.

“In the last few weeks, Ollie has trained with us, which I’m really grateful to Fulham and Lingy [Martin Ling] for organising that, so we already know a bit about him.

“He is someone who likes to get on the ball and make things happen. He can play right across the midfielder areas and I believe he can really grow and develop with us in the coming years.”

Leyton Orient are currently tenth in League One and next up is a trip to Reading this Saturday. 

About Luke Jordan

Luke joined the extratime.com team in 2022 and is the current host of the extratime.com podcast.

He’s been a follower of the league since 2007 after the FAI Soccer camps gave out … View Full Profile