Brisbane Road boss reveals squad watched through Crawley match, discusses adding to the team and what they have worked on this week
Leyton Orient head coach Ian Hendon is happy with the squad available at his disposal and won’t be banging on President Francesco Becchetti’s door asking to strengthen unless he feels it is necessary.
The O’s will be without experience defender Alan Dunne this weekend after he received a red card at Crawley Town on Saturday.
Orient won’t be bringing anybody in to cover the former Millwall man, however, and Hendon is pleased with his group of players.
He admitted he would like to work with a big squad, but doesn’t have unlimited resources to work with at Brisbane Road.
“We have got a squad and a couple of lads out on loan and getting valuable experience. We have Harry Lee at Welling United in the National League and doing really well. We are having him watched every time he is playing,” said Hendon.
“Regarding bringing somebody in, we only have one game without Alan Dunne to cover. ‘Matty’ Baudry will be fit for the weekend and we obviously wanted him back because he is our captain.
“It wouldn’t be fair to bring somebody in on-loan for a month just to cover one game. Alan has been unfortunate with the two starts he has had, but he is an experienced player and will get over that.
“He has held his hands up for last week and we have to take that, things happen in football. Regarding putting more people in the squad, I am still happy with what I have got.
“People keep telling me and asking me if I am going to make it bigger, well I would love to make it bigger is the answer and have a bigger squad, but we are where we are and we have what we have.
“I am happy with my squad. There are budgetary restraints on what we do and we are where we are. If I need somebody like John Marquis the president has been great and allowed me to do it, but I am not banging on his door to bring players in for the sake of getting a bigger squad.
“If I feel there are weaknesses in our team and squad then I will be banging on his door, but I actually don’t think we have many weaknesses there.”
Although Orient haven’t won too many matches over the past month and a half, the level of performances they are delivering has been impressive.
Hendon revealed the players went over the Crawley defeat in detail at the start of this week to ensure everybody knew what their jobs were.
Now he hopes they can get a positive result when Oxford United visit Brisbane Road this weekend.
“We came in on Monday and went through the Crawley game. We don’t normally sit and watch through matches, but I thought it was important that we did,” added Hendon.
“We normally do a debrief after our games and I pick out the bits that were important from the match, but on Monday we sat through it with the players and staff.
“It was stop-start, we picked out bits and pieces some that I wasn’t happy with and some the players weren’t sure about. It definitely wasn’t a crisis meeting, but it was just an opportunity to make sure everybody is clear in their mind about what we are after.
“You look at it and if we had gone two up, Crawley maybe would have collapsed and speaking to their staff after the game they thought they were lucky to get away with the win even when we had 10 men.
“I keep saying it - the performances are there, but the results are not so somewhere along the line that has to change. We have put some more concentration on our shape and other things this week so hopefully we won’t concede sloppy goals and we’ll take our opportunities at the other end.”
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