Brisbane Road boss reflects to 3-2 defeat against Crawley Town, the chances they missed and the goals they conceded

Leyton Orient head coach Ian Hendon admitted his side didn’t defend well enough against Crawley Town after suffering a 3-2 defeat at Broadfield Stadium.

When Jay Simpson put them ahead after eight minutes it seemed like the O’s could go on and take all three points from the Red Devils.

They had plenty of chances to add to their tally, but failed to and conceded in the 27th minute when Roarie Deacon was given too much space on the edge of the area.

Mitch Hancox then caught Alex Cisak out at his near post before things got even worst as Alan Dunne tangled with former Dagenham & Redbridge forward Rhys Murphy inside the penalty area on the stroke of half time.

Although their didn’t seem like much contact, Crawley were awarded a spot-kick and Dunne was given his marching orders.

Simon Walton converted the penalty and although Simpson pulled one back late on, the O’s fell to a 3-2 defeat.

The Orient boss discussed the incident just before the break afterwards, he said: “We have looked at it.

“Dunne is going back in and it looked very clumsy and like a penalty, I’ve got to be honest. I don’t think it should have been a sending off.

“When you look closely at the video, the lad has already gone on his way down before anyone else gets near him.

“That is initially what I thought, but then the referee gives it and you go with it. But when we have looked at the video, the lad has played for it.”

Although it was a frustrating decision for the visitors to take, they didn’t defend well enough at Broadfield Stadium.

Adam Chicksen allowed Deacon too much space for the first while Cisak should have done better for the second.

Hendon added: “I don’t think the defensive errors are down to our formation because we have taken the game to Crawley for long periods, even in the second half with 10 men.

“I just think defensively we need to switch on. For the penalty we are a bit forward with defenders bombing on, trying to get forward and join in.

“But Crawley come back and play down the side where our defences vacate so there is a lot of work to be done.”

Orient arguably should have been further ahead by the time Crawley equalised in the 27th minute with Simpson missing a great opportunity.

He did score three minutes later, but the effort was ruled out because Ollie Palmer was in an offside position.

But after watching back on the video, the O’s boss insisted that should have countered.

“We did start brightly and it could have been a lot better as well. We have scored one, had one ruled out for offside and if the officials look closely at that they will see the centre half is in line with Ollie,” said Hendon.

“It is just the fact the Ollie is the first blue shirt the linesman on this side sees. If the linesman had been the other side of the pitch he probably wouldn’t have seen it.

“That was an opportunity. Jay went through and should have scored so we could have been two or possible three up, but I can’t keep talking about that. Defensively today we made mistakes.”