Leyton Orient midfielder Josh Wright revealed he felt the nerve-wracking pressure as he stepped up to the penalty spot to level the score against Northampton Town.

The Cobblers led 1-0 thanks to a first-half strike from Ryan Watson but the O's were then awarded a penalty when Scott Wharton handled the ball in the area in the 83rd minute.

Wright stepped up and fired the ball into the bottom left corner for his eighth goal of the season.

"Penalties are a weird one, I think if you look right across the board now, goalkeepers are getting a lot more athletic, a lot more powerful, they go early now or if they don't can wait and have got that power to push across.

"I was watching football on Sunday, Jamie Vardy missed a penalty, and everyone does now.

"I obviously missed my last one after that I did stick it away from the rebound, but said to Lee (Angol) he could have the next one.

"I've showed composure, but the biggest thing about penalties is bottle, stepping up and without me saying it about myself they're very nerve-wracking especially the way results have gone at the moment.

"The pressure that was on that penalty, I can't lie I felt it big time, there is no two ways about it I had what I wanted to do and I hit it very sweet.

"I was delighted to score, yes its eight goals, but if I could swap them goals for another eight wins I'd take that right now.

"The fans deserved that, the whole football club deserved it, as it's been a frustrating period."

After Wright found the back of the net Wharton tried pulling the ball out of Jordan Maguire-Drew's hands as he went to collect it - forcing him down and resulting in a number of players coming together behind the goal.

But the former Millwall man insists he is not entirely sure what happened but feels team-mate James Dayton was hard done by as he received a red card along with Northampton's Wharton.

"I'll be completely honest with you, I was asking all the players that question in the changing room after, I was asking the referee, their players and their staff.

"As you could probably see I ran off celebrating as I was delighted to have stuck the penalty away, but I felt something was weird as I could shouting, I turned round to see Dayts was pinned down by one of their players so I've ran over like a lot of other players.

"It's not for me to say, but it felt like Dayts was very hard done to receive a red card, as from what I can see he's done nothing wrong other than someone trying to grab the ball then it went off from there."