Brisbane Road boss disappointed with more bad defending by his team after another draw in League Two

Leyton Orient head coach Ian Hendon has admitted he is looking to bring more defenders to the club in the January transfer window.

The O’s conceded two more poor goals at Stevenage today and had to settle for a 2-2 draw at Broadhall Way.

Jay Simpson scored a last gasp equaliser, his 20th of the campaign, to earn a point for the east Londoners.

While he continues to be linked with a move away from Brisbane Road, it appears Hendon is keen to change his back four.

“We just looked at the goals and it is poor defending,” said the Orient boss. “We work on it all week and we ask the players to go out and do a job and sadly they have not done it again.

“All that hard work that Jay is doing at the moment is to no avail at the moment.

“We coach every day of the week and we are specifically working on defending, but you have seen the mistakes for yourself today. They are player errors.

“Why is the pressure on them? We try to get them to go and play with a freedom, obviously when they are defending we want them to defend properly.

“We put our sessions on and coach them and tell them what to do, but when they cross that white line there is not a lot we can do about it.

“We have a two week gap now until the next game and I shall see speaking to the owner and trying to do something.”

Hendon admitted his teams defending at Stevenage just wasn’t good enough, but the draw does actually see Orient move up a place in the table to eighth.

They are two points off Accrington Stanley, who occupy the final play-off position ahead of a two-week break from action now.

Captain Mathieu Baudry will be unavailable for their next match against Exeter City at Brisbane Road on January 16.

When the O’s do play that fixture, they could have another new defender in their ranks.

Hendon added: “We definitely want to bring people in at the back. Matty has been a big loss, he is the one with the experience in there.

“Connor Essam started the season really well, but has been out injured. To be fair to him he has come from non-league and we probably wouldn’t have expected him to play as many games as he had this season.

“We have a young lad alongside him in Cole Kpekawa so they are going to make basic errors, but today wasn’t good enough.

“Alan Dunne does provide a lot of experience and he has been in to see me about playing, but when he has played he has made a few errors as well.

“It is similar to the other lads so we’ll get back to the training ground and try to iron them mistakes out.”

At the full time whistle some away supporters chanted ‘Hendon out’ and the Orient head coach appreciates their disappointment.

He added: “I am as frustrated as the supporters, but as I said before you put a team out on the pitch and if they go and make errors and mistakes there is nothing I can do about that.

“We coach them all week and we can tell them, but the window is open and lets see what happens.”