They say never fall in love with a loan player, but Leyton Orient supporters have justifiably become smitten with two of theirs.
Jamie Donley and Josh Keeley have been pivotal to the O’s surprise promotion push, scoring and creating goals at one end and keeping them out at the other.
The pair are the latest in a long line of Tottenham loanees to have made a lasting impression at Brisbane Road, regardless of the outcome of Sunday’s League One play-off final against Charlton Athletic.
That Harry Kane flourished after making the short journey from north to east London has encouraged others to follow the same path.
“Even some of the staff [at Spurs] have been here and worked here and they said how good a club it is, how welcoming they are, and how much they could help me,” Donley tells The i Paper, hours before his parent club’s Europa League triumph in Bilbao.
“I was here first. Josh didn’t really know what he was doing [this season], but I said to him it’s great here. He wasn’t playing straight away, but when he got the chance he took it.”
“A few of the [Tottenham] players have said we’re doing really well about me and Jay and have been congratulating us and telling us to keep going and keep working,” Keeley adds during a chat at the club’s Chigwell training base.
Spurs will be delighted with how things have panned out for two of their brightest young talents in what was always going to be a pivotal year for their development.
Donley, a technically gifted left-footed playmaker in the Kane mould, made a handful of appearances for Ange Postecoglou’s first team in 2023-24 but needed to head elsewhere to gain more experience.
This has been his first full season in professional football and after a tricky start in which he dipped in and out of Richie Wellens’ starting XI, he has made a huge impression.
“That part of the season… it didn’t feel good during it but it has probably helped me, it was a good learning curve,” Donley reflects.
“I obviously spoke to the gaffer about what he wanted from me and when he put me back in I just tried to show him that.”
It’s Keeley’s second loan away from Spurs, but a sizeable two-tier jump from his first with Barnet in the National League. He has also taken it in his stride to become a commanding presence between the posts.
The stats speak for themselves. Donley has scored eight goals and provided 10 assists, more than any other player in League One. Keeley has kept 16 clean sheets, a tally only three keepers in the division can better, despite only making his first league appearance in mid-October.
Their efforts have led to international recognition. Antrim-born Donley earned his first two senior caps for Northern Ireland in March against Switzerland and Sweden, while Keeley found out about his first call-up for the Republic of Ireland before the semi-final second leg win over Stockport County.
He capped a dream day by saving a penalty in their shootout win at Edgeley Park. “He said the night before that it was going to go to penalties and he was going to save one,” Donley says with a grin.
“You just have the belief that you’re going to save it,” Keeley says. “I had the names [of Stockport’s penalty takers] on my water bottle, but it got thrown into the crowd!”
Besides the numbers, they have each produced moments that will live long in the memory of all Orient fans.
Donley shot to prominence in January when his lob from 40 yards clipped the underside of the bar and went into the net off Stefan Ortega during a heroic FA Cup defeat against Manchester City.
JAMIE DONLEY. THAT'S INCREDIBLE.
The @SpursOfficial loanee with an incredible effort from distance that ends up in the net to give @leytonorientfc the opening goal against Manchester City
#EmiratesFACup pic.twitter.com/bHnKg92Q2y
— Emirates FA Cup (@EmiratesFACup) February 8, 2025
Orient wouldn’t have had such a glamour tie without Keeley’s heroics against Oldham Athletic in the second round, with the keeper scoring a header in the ninth minute of added time to force extra time.
“Obviously, saving a penalty is every goalie’s dream, nothing can ever top it really, but nobody ever thinks about scoring a goal,” Keeley says when asked if that was his highlight in an Orient shirt.
“I had goalies coming up to me for a month or two after the game, saying ‘I’d retire if I were you’ after that goal!”
Content as they are with how their loans have gone, there is a steely determination from both to end on a high at Wembley. Donley has played there once for Spurs’ youth team; for Keeley, it will be a first ever appearance at the iconic stadium.
It’s a finely poised London derby. Charlton finished two places and seven points higher than Orient in the League One table and having done the double over their city rivals in the regular season, are viewed as slight favourites to follow Birmingham and Wrexham into the Championship.
“We probably should have got more in the league games we played against them,” Keeley says. “We have a gameplan [for Sunday] and hopefully we can execute it.”
“The first game was my debut for Orient,” Donley adds. “The gaffer spoke about it being a new group coming together, and they scored late in that game and two late ones in the other one, but we kind of dominated both games.
“We know we can beat them. Playing on a big pitch and a good playing surface will help the way that we want to play.”
It’s a huge occasion for a club that hasn’t graced the second tier of English football since 1982.
Orient were last in this position in 2014, and that penalty shootout defeat to Rotherham is infamous for what came next. A dramatic decline, which took the club into non-league and to the brink of existence under the chaotic previous owners, followed in just four years.
“Obviously, it puts pressure on all of us, but from that comes excitement as well, that we’ve got the chance to create history,” Donley says. “This is a special group and I think we can be the ones who can do it.”
“The way that the club have treated me and Josh, they deserve to be in the Championship next year,” he adds. “It would be a great feeling to get them there.”
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