Australian goalkeeper believes momentum is key as the battle for promotion heats up
Leyton Orient goalkeeper Alex Cisak admits the play-offs are the minimum they should look to achieve this season under new player-manager Kevin Nolan.
Since the appointment of the former West Ham United coach, the O’s have kept consecutive clean sheets and achieved two victories.
It has seen them rise from 11th to sixth in the table and boosted their hopes of earning promotion from League Two.
Cambridge United are the visitors to Brisbane Road tomorrow (Saturday) and another success for the east Londoners could see them close the gap on third place Oxford United to five points.
“This is the most vital part of the season now so you need to try and get as many wins as possible to get the minimum of the play-offs,” said Cisak.
“You want to look further, but realistically I don’t know – we need to assess after the next five or six games and then go from there.
“If you get a few victories you start climbing up the table and I think we need to keep looking above us.
“There is 18 games left so we need to get 14 or 15 wins to get into the top three, which is our goal, but we need to go one game at a time now.”
Cisak went on to explain how during his time at Accrington Stanley, a shift in momentum helped them achieve something that appeared impossible.
During the 2010/11 League Two season, the Lancashire club were 19th in the table with 27 matches played.
But 19 games and 11 victories later, they were in the play-offs and Orient’s number one is taking inspiration from that.
“You obviously want to win every game and it is a crazy league. I have done it with Accrington where we were near the bottom and then we only just missed out on automatic,” said Cisak.
“As long as you get some momentum and more victories, anything can happen. I think it is vital we win on Saturday against Cambridge.
“Then see where we are, assess the table and go from there. The minimum we need is the play-offs and anything more is a bonus.”
Orient will expect another difficult encounter at Brisbane Road when the Shaun Derry’s men visit.
Newport County were hard to breakdown on Tuesday night and the Australian expects the U’s to be the exact same.
Cisak added: “Every game in this division is tough and it just depends how you play on the day.
“I think in the first half we weren’t at our best against Newport, but in the second we were a lot better.
“We just need to play every match as it comes and try to be solid at the back and clinical up front.”
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