Peter Kitchen has praised the Brisbane Road head coach as his new book The Goal Gourmet is set to be released again

East London Advertiser: Leyton Orient legend Peter Kitchen in action for the club during the 1978/79 campaign (pic: Colorsport/Andrew Cowie).Leyton Orient legend Peter Kitchen in action for the club during the 1978/79 campaign (pic: Colorsport/Andrew Cowie). (Image: Colorsport)

Leyton Orient legend Peter Kitchen has praised the job head coach Ian Hendon has done so far with two months of the new season completed.

The former West Ham United first team coach only took over at Brisbane Road during the summer, but has overseen a huge exodus of players.

He has brought in various new additions and they are proving their worth with Orient just two points behind League Two leaders Plymouth Argyle with 11 matches played this year.

Although the O’s found victories hard to come by in September, Kitchen believes Hendon should be praised for making a new squad look like a team so quickly.

“I think Ian has done a fantastic job so far and the team has really been flying in the early matches,” said the Orient legend, who had two playing spells with the east Londoners.

“They have probably played a few harder clubs recently and sides are maybe looking at how they play and are getting organised to stop Orient playing, but one of the hardest things in football is to actually bring a team together and get them working as a team.

“If you have unlimited money you can go and sign star players and then you expect them to perform, but when you haven’t got a lot of money you have to bring in player that don’t cost a lot or ones that are free transfers.

“Once you have done that, I would say one of the hardest things is to get them to gel as a team, but so far you can see the commitment and hard work they put in and they are a really good side and it would be great for them if they could get promoted.”

Orient began the campaign by winning their first five matches to reach the summit, but have since dropped off the pace a little.

However Kitchen believes they have what it takes to get back up to League One and picked out two players for praise.

One of them being Dean Cox, who keeps showing his class by having a big influence on almost all of the O’s matches this year.

Kitchen added: “Can they get promotion? I don’t see why not! They have still got a few players from last year like ‘Coxy’ and he is having a great early season.

“Jay Simpson has had a renaissance and is scoring goals. They look solid at the back and work hard as a team.

“The one thing in that division, if you have got any sort of team spirit and a few good players there is no reason why they shouldn’t get promotion and it would be great for the owner of the club.

“He come in and had the disappointment of relegation last year so it would be a real lift for them to get promoted and obviously he does have a real personal wealth that he may feel he would like to invest in the club.”