Richie Wellens heaped praise on his Leyton Orient side after an emphatic 3-0 victory over Crawley.
The O’s have now only lost one of their last 12 matches in all competitions and have not conceded in their last six games. Meanwhile Crawley remain in the relegation zone .
Orient went ahead before the break when Charlie Kelman struck his ninth goal of the season and after the interval fellow striker Dan Agyei scored his 10th of the campaign before Omar Beckles made it 3-0 as Crawley caved in.
“From the first whistle, we could have scored inside a minute from our very first attack,” Wellens said. “They came into it a little bit but it was a complete performance from us and one-way traffic.
“We were defensively solid and could have scored a lot more goals.
“I watched their match versus Birmingham on Monday and they were hard to break down where it took a late goal from a quality side to get the better of them. But they changed their shape which surprised me and it left Dan Agyei one-on-one which helped as he’s a quality player who can really hurt you.
“The most important thing now is keeping everyone fit during a busy period. Our full-backs were outstanding today and a real threat. Our loan players are growing into their roles and we’re developing them.
“Let’s stay level headed and remain calm and see where it takes us. We can take a lot of the positives – we’ve built over the last six weeks into our next game against Cambridge on Sunday.”
Crawley manager Rob Elliot offered no excuses for his team’s defeat.
“I thought that we were poor, we didn’t deserve anything from the game and we were a shadow of what we’ve been in the last two or three months,” he admitted.
“I thought that we started OK in terms of chances when we were moving the ball from side to side but then they stepped on to us and we just weren’t able to deal with it and they thoroughly deserved it.
“Leyton Orient were excellent, they were big and strong and ran over us.
“I am very disappointed with our performance and the manner of the performance because that is not acceptable for us and the standards we’ve set.
“I told the lads in there that that level of performance is unacceptable and I don’t want to see that again.
“Maybe I could have helped the lads a bit more in the way I set the team up but with limited options with injuries, we weren’t able to get the complete balance of the team right but I still expect us to perform better. We have enough in terms of quality to do that.”
