Richie Wellens hailed a “dominant 1-0 win” after Leyton Orient saw off relegation-threatened Crawley for a 13th home league victory of the season.
Idris El Mizouni netted his second goal of the week as the League Two leaders moved another step closer to promotion, although the margin of victory could have been greater with the Os wasting a host of chances.
El Mizouni produced the decisive strike on 49 minutes whilst Ruel Sotiriou and Charlie Kelman both went close to extending the advantage, with Kelman’s shot hitting the woodwork.
“It was a great team performance, I am really proud of the players,” said Wellens.
“I don’t think you will see a more dominant, comfortable 1-0 win than today. We had five or six occasions when we hit across the six-yard box and created really good opportunities.
“Our movement was really good. At times I thought during the first half we completely ran all over them and our press was really good.
“It was a great day, the atmosphere was really electric but it made it easier with the majority of the game being played in their final third.
“I looked at the statistics and amazingly we limited them to one single shot on target, and no one could have any complaints if we had won by four or five today.
“We told the players we needed to get forward and land on those second balls. I don’t think (Crawley are) a bad side but it really hurt them the way we played.”
Crawley were left still seeking their first away league win of the season and boss Scott Lindsey had no qualms about the result, which leaves his side in the relegation zone.
“It wasn’t a narrow defeat if I am honest because I thought Orient fully deserved to win it,” he acknowledged.
“We played reasonably well in the first half and created a couple of chances, particularly the one that skidded across the face of their goal.
“So it was decent game from us in those 45 minutes where I thought with what we had available, in terms of players and all the injuries we have got, we went about our business really well.
“In the second half though, they have scored from our corner where we weren’t professional or smart enough to run hard on the turnover and they break aggressively and we just didn’t race back aggressively with them.
“They managed the ball much better than we did.
“The last thing we spoke about at half-time was not conceding early. It was the last message so I just don’t know what more we can do as it’s happened again.”
