Experienced manager talks about attacking through wings and how Newport County won’t be an easy match
Andy Hessenthaler believes his Leyton Orient team will score plenty of goals this season in League Two.
The new campaign is only two games old and the O’s have scored three times ahead of hosting Newport County this weekend.
It is the east Londoners second fixture in the division after drawing 1-1 at Cheltenham Town last Saturday.
After watching Orient nearly fight back from three goals down to take Fulham to extra-time in the first round of the English Football League Cup on Tuesday, Hessenthaler is delighted with his attacking options.
He said: “We don’t want to concede because we want to keep clean sheets and if we do that with our front six, whoever plays, we’ll get goals with this team.
“But if we do concede goals, I believe we can still come back into games with the quality we have got. We showed that against Fulham.”
O’s choice of forwards will be weakened when Jay Simpson departs the club with Southend United close to signing the striker.
Although Hessenthaler won’t discuss the former Arsenal youngsters, he did reflect on Orient’s different style of play this year.
Having brought in Gavin Massey and Harry Cornick, it appears the east Londoners will look to attack out wide.
“We feel we have pace in good areas now and wing play is the way we need to go with the players we’ve got,” said Hessenthaler.
“It suits us to get the ball wide and play through the thirds of the pitch, but get it wide and we’ve got the players in the box like Ollie Palmer, Paul McCallum and Jordan Bowery.
“We have to get balls into the box with that type of player in the team and it was pleasing against Fulham that we did work the flanks quite well.”
The Brisbane Road boss was thrilled with the way his team finished the match against the Championship side on Tuesday.
He expects O’s to take that momentum into their second League Two fixture of the campaign on Saturday.
“To finish the game off like that is great for us and to be honest I was pleased with the performance at Cheltenham,” said Hessenthaler.
“I was disappointed we didn’t get the result, the three points, but we did well. I think if we carry on doing what we did against Fulham, then hopefully we can get a nice win on Saturday and kick on.”
Newport finished just above the relegation places last season in 22nd, although they were nine points above Dagenham & Redbridge and York City.
They’ve signed 16 players to date and Orient’s manager is full of respect for Exiles boss Warren Feeney.
Hessenthaler added: “We’re at home and the onus is on us and we want to get off to a winning start at home, but they’ll come and make it very difficult for us.
“We’ll have our reports on them and I think the manager has made a lot of new signings and changed things around. It is not going to be easy game.”
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