Orient will look to profit from a solid foundation at the back when they visit the Shay this weekend

Leyton Orient head coach Justin Edinburgh is fully aware the club are not out of a relegation battle just yet, but feels they can now start to strive for more in the National League.

The Brisbane Road club return to league action this weekend with a trip to Halifax Town – who are three places ahead of the O’s in 16th position, but only two points better off.

Edinburgh and his squad therefore know a victory at the Shay will see them move ahead of a direct rival and the 48-year-old is looking for Orient to kick on now after a run of one defeat in six league games.

He said: “There is no doubt about it when I arrived the club was going in one direction and getting sucked into a relegation battle. We are not clear of that yet, but we have given ourselves some breathing space.

“Credit to the players because after one league defeat in six you can’t be too critical, but you can always want more and we have to strive for more.”

When Edinburgh arrived at Orient at the end of November, the O’s had conceded 15 goals in their previous nine games in all competitions and kept just one clean sheet during that period, which resulted in Steve Davis getting the sack just four months after his appointment.

But under their relatively new boss, the east Londoners have managed to keep four clean sheets in nine games in all competitions and conceded just five goals.

After improving Orient’s defence, Edinburgh’s next challenge is to get the attackers at the club firing after a recent lean spell in front of goal.

Saturday’s 2-1 win at Bognor Regis Town ended a three-game run without a goal for O’s as Macauley Bonne and Josh Koroma netted at Nyewood Lane.

Edinburgh has seen Orient score 12 goals in his nine games in charge, but knows that ratio must improve, he added: “I am certainly pleased with the players’ attitude and application.

“There is always room for improvement, but we’ve given ourselves a chance to improve. I needed to come in and reduce the amount of goals we were conceding and we’ve done that and now we can start to focus on further up the pitch.

“It has been a hectic period and we didn’t have a lot of training time over Christmas. It was all about playing and then recovering, but now we can start implementing a few more ideas going forward.”