Brisbane Road boss hails effort of his players despite conceding twice to exit Capital One Cup

Leyton Orient head coach Ian Hendon praised the performance of his team after watching them exit the Capital One Cup following a heartbreaking 2-1 loss to MK Dons in the first round of the competition.

An own-goal from Dean Lewington in the 36th minute seemed like being enough to send the O’s through to the next round at stadiummk.

But away skipper Mathieu Baudry headed past Alex Cisak on the stroke of full time and soon after Carl Baker slotted into the corner to give Karl Robinson’s Dons a late and underserved victory.

Orient didn’t have enough time to get back level and were knocked out in unfortunate circumstances, but their players could leave the pitch proud of their display.

Hendon said: “MK Dons have obviously got qualities and they have a lot of the ball and possession.

“Our team have to set up to combat them having the ball and we did that very well. Even up to them scoring those goals we have dealt with it quite well and we were unlucky with their goal, a little bit like ours.

“I think the team looked more comfortable as the game went on and we know what MK are about and how they play, but I thought that we combated that very well.

“They went away to Rotherham on Saturday and won 4-1 so to come here and perform like we did it was a good performance.”

Orient’s head coach admitted his players were bitterly disappointed after the match, but told them to be proud of their display.

He was gutted to lose in the circumstances that they did but felt his side needed to focus on the positives and look ahead to Saturday’s derby with Dagenham & Redbridge.

“From a manager’s point of view and from the coaching staff we won’t go into the changing room and rant and rave,” added Hendon.

“We were one nil up in the 90th minute and yes we have concede an own-goal and had the sucker punch at the end and they are disappointed, but I just said to them was we going to win the Capital One Cup? Probably not.

“That is not a get out. That is me trying to pick the players up because of the importance of Saturday. Hopefully we go out and perform like we did against MK Dons.”

Although the O’s grew into the fixture and had opportunities to double their lead through Ollie Palmer, Jay Simpson and Connor Essam, the hosts did up the tempo as the match moved towards the final exchanges.

Second half substitute Ben Reeves started to make them tick and Hendon’s side were under pressure for a lot of the final 10 minutes.

He pondered whether the changes MK Dons made from their side on Saturday had an affect on the proceeding at the end too.

“Another thing is they made 10 changes to their starting line up from Saturday and we’ve made four so you could say the legs have gone a little bit towards the end,” said Hendon.

“I am making no excuses and I don’t have to. We have come to a Championship club, performed really well and probably should have won the game. I am disappointed with the result, but the performance from our lads was superb.”