New Leyton Orient head coach Carl Fletcher was left ‘a little bit disappointed’ after suffering a 4-0 defeat at former club Plymouth Argyle on Tuesday.

In the O's dugout for the first time, having watched Saturday's win at Grimsby from the stands, Fletcher saw the visitors concede four times in the first half at Home Park.

But there was some controversy about Joel Grant's 14th-minute opener, after Dean Brill had denied Antoni Sarcevic and Zak Rudden, as the visitors felt the ball had been handled in the build-up.

Fletcher said: "It's a shocker from the ref. I'm a little bit disappointed the ref and the linesman didn't see it.

"I think they were the only two out of the nine thousand that didn't see it. You didn't need VAR, you didn't even need a decent pair of glasses.

"These things happen, they obviously change games but we needed to be better at certain things in the first half. It was a little bit disappointing."

Rudden doubled Plymouth's lead just three minutes later with a deft header, with Callum McFadzen making it 3-0 on 34 minutes with a shot from the edge of the box.

A miserable opening half was completed when Brill pushed a cross into the back of Joe Widdowson and saw it rebound into the net, but O's went close to replying in the second half.

Dan Happe's firm header was saved, while James Alabi curled just wide and Jordan Maguire-Drew had a shot deflected onto the top of the crossbar.

Louis Dennis also hit a post and Fletcher added: "There's a lot of work to do but the lads kept digging in, they were grafting away all night.

"It's very easy to drop the heads and almost sulk about it to a degree but they kept giving everything they had.

"Since I've come in we've had probably three hours on the training pitch so there's a lot of work we need to do.

"But the core of the group and the graft and their will to work is there which is really pleasing.

"I think it was important that second half we showed a bit of character, put in a solid performance and didn't concede any more goals and put in a bit of fight."