Orient captain McAnuff has returned to training

The 38-year-old player/coach has missed the entire season to date but is now getting very close to a potential return to action.

The former Reading captain was an influential member of the team last season as they sealed the National League title and could offer head coach Ross Embleton another option in midfield in the near future.

"It's a little bit surreal at the moment because we went from training on Wednesday with about 18 or 19 players, to training yesterday to training with around 23, one of which was Jobi McAnuff, which I think for everybody is a delight to see him back out there," Embleton revealed.

"He's worked his socks off in order to do that, so now it's really important that we keep chipping away at him to see if he can continue to come through the sessions that he is doing and build and come closer to the team.

"I'm probably waiting for that knock on the door from Jobi to ask me why he's not in the team in the coming weeks but that's a positive situation to find ourselves in."

As well as the return of McAnuff to training, Louis Dennis and Sam Ling have also stepped up their recoveries, with the duo taking part in the warm-up prior to the Oldham game, although not in the squad while Jamie Turley and Marvin Ekpiteta are not quite ready.

"Louis Dennis was in the 19/20 man squad today, albeit not on the bench but I think that shows another positive that he's out there warming up.

"Sam Ling has trained again this week for a couple of days and he's in a very similar situation to Jobi.

"We've just got keep chipping away to see how quickly we can get him back out there.

"Just before kick-off, Marv (Marvin Ekpiteta) and Turls (Jamie Turley) were out there. "Turls is going to be a bit longer because of the operation and Marv's is one that we're assessing every day because it's bruising to the bones in his shins more than anything else, so we have to just let that settle.

"There's not really a timescale you can put on that."