Leyton Orient manager Richie Wellens was left purring at his side’s performance after watching his charges run out 3-0 victors against Bristol Rovers and move out of the relegation zone.
The O’s dominated from the start and by half-time had put their opponents to the sword with goals from Dan Happe, Ollie O’Neill and leading scorer Dan Agyei, who took his tally for the season to eight in all competitions.
Wellens said: “We spoke to the players beforehand and I told them the first half-hour would be important as both teams played 120 minutes at the weekend.
“We made changes to freshen up the side as they did but we created lots of chances, played forwards, landed on the second balls, pressed them high and showed some great combination play so overall a really good performance.
“Football is a mental game and if you have a confident team with confident players it becomes a lot easier.
“Injuries are forcing our hand at the moment and again today with a few substitutions so it’s been difficult but you can see we’ve changed the way we play with our full-backs.
“I watched the game from upstairs this evening and didn’t need to come down until full-time because it really flowed and all aspects of our game was really impressive.
“We know they have some talented players and threats but it was really good from start to finish.
“If you win a couple on the bounce it massively changes the table. We’re so early on so let’s see where the next six or seven games take us.”
Bristol Rovers coach Dave Horseman, deputising for manager Matt Taylor who is on leave to address a family issue, was scathing of his own responsibility.
He said: “We have to apologise to our supporters because that was nowhere near acceptable.
“I take full responsibility for the performance because you can’t perform that bad. I have to do better than that because that was really, really poor, as bad as I’ve seen.
“Our players are good people and they try hard but there has to be better quality than that. We had such spirit and quality about us on Saturday but that was not evident tonight.
“So, I have to reflect on that and maybe there will be plenty of stuff that I can do better. Before I do that, I can’t look at any players.
“We missed too many tackles, we didn’t slide across the pitch quick enough and then we actually got it, we didn’t look after it all. So you don’t ever give yourself a breather.
“In truth, I didn’t think they had to work very hard for their goals but they took them very well.”
