Leyton Orient Interim head coach Ross Embleton admitted they left themselves with too much to do as they suffered a 3-1 defeat to Colchester United on Boxing Day.

A brace from Theo Robinson and a goal from skipper Harry Pell sealed the three points for the U's with the only bright note for the O's being a goal for youngster Ruel Sotiriou at Brisbane Road.

And the boss felt conceding sloppy goals proved costly against an in-form Colchester outfit.

"We give ourselves too much to do at times, but I think in the recent weeks that results have obviously looked a bit perkier, as I think what we started to have is a pride and desire to go do the League Two things," Embleton said.

"To compete, make tackles, defend and do all the gritty side of the game which then allows you to go impose yourselves on the opposition.

"We did give ourselves a good opportunity to get back into it and probably should have got back into it with some of the chances that we created.

"It was bigger than that though as I don't think we quite done those things that we've been good at of recent well enough today (Thursday)."

The former Swindon Town assistant manager did heap praise on their opponents and backs them to be pushing up near the top of the table come the end of the season.

"Extremely disappointed, for me you're looking at a team who will or should potentially be in the play-offs with the quality of the team they've got but the margin between us is not huge but we didn't compete to give us a platform to do that.

"Then when you concede naïve goals it's going to give you a big hurdle to get over and it's very disappointing to do that."

Embleton did praise 19-year-old striker Sotiriou who scored on his Football League debut to give the O's a fighting chance as he made it 2-1.

"I'm really pleased with Ruel, he come back from his loan at Dover and I know he certainly would have wanted more time out on the pitch, but we haven't been able to give him that recently.

"He has stayed patient and we've had a couple of good conversations about staying at it and today (Thursday) I was delighted to get him on the pitch but also for the way that he took his chance."

While he also praise loanee George Marsh who played at right-back instead of his preferred centre-midfield role in the match.

"I had a conversation with him about the position, obviously it's well documented about the full-backs we've got missing right now, but he's played there for Tottenham so I felt he would be a very good choice.

"I wanted to know that he would be comfortable with it because you don't want to play a player in a position that they're not particularly happy with.

"He took on that and I was delighted with his attitude, I also felt he delivered an outstanding performance."