Leyton Orient boss Richie Wellens was critical of the way his side allowed Carlisle United to stay in Saturday’s game.
Wellens claimed Orient’s 1-0 victory was a “good win” at a “tough place”.
But he felt the visitors could have made life easier for themselves instead of enabling Carlisle to cling onto hopes of a late equaliser.
“From a moment where we should have been two or three up, we end the game [defending] long balls, set plays, give free-kicks away, long balls, set plays, and they turned it into the game they wanted,” said Wellens.
“We didn’t show any amount of calmness in the second half. We’re hoping to get them on the counter in the second half but didn’t show that calmness.
“It was a dogged performance. At spells a little bit lucky because if the ball bounces for Carlisle then they can nick something from it, in a game we should be two or three goals in front.”
Ruel Sotiriou’s first-half goal was the difference as Orient extended an unbeaten run at Brunton Park to eight visits.
Wellens explained how the visitors had worked on the kind of move that opened Carlisle up.
“For 25 minutes, half an hour, we worked on a lot with possession, especially with our 8s, either running or staying on the outside of them, to see what their 4s do,” said the Orient manager.
“We kept them really wide, they mark them and it leaves massive pockets for our strikers to come in.
“[Joe] Pigott drops in, it opens up and when their centre-half releases, there’s a big gap to play either side of the other centre-half to get Ruel in.
“It’s something that we worked on but we only did it once or twice. We were nowhere near cohesive enough.”
Orient, though, rose to tenth with their victory in Cumbria and Wellens felt his defence in particular earned the result.
“It’s a good win. It’s a tough place to go,” he added.
“It took us six-and-a-half hours to get here yesterday, and it’s a tough place to come because of the crowd – they stuck by them, and it’s a tough team to play against when they start putting balls in the box like that.
“So it was a pleasing clean sheet and pleasing win.
“We defended our box really well and when they broke our last line we had Sol [Brynn, goalkeeper] to do what he does best.
“The back three were probably our best players.”
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