Brisbane Road boss discusses fitness of Paul McCallum and why Scott Kashket and Freddy Moncur weren’t involved at Grosvenor Vale

Leyton Orient boss Andy Hessenthaler felt last night’s pre-season clash at Wealdstone was a good work out for his team.

The O’s trailed after just five minutes, but fine efforts from Jay Simpson and Sandro Semedo turned the game on its head before half time.

Orient made 10 changes at the break and despite Charlie Grainger being tested on a couple of occasions, they held on for the victory.

Robbie Weir captained the east Londoners for the first 45 before Nicky Hunt wore the armband after the break.

Hessenthaler said: “I think by the end of the week we’ll make the decision on the captain and announce it with the players and it’ll set us up for the season.

“We’ll have a vice-captain and probably a club captain too so we’ll make them decisions over the next few days.

“I felt we were sloppy with Wealdstone’s goal and a few opportunities they created, but going forward, especially first half, I thought we created some decent chances.

“We had a lot of play through the likes of Jordan Bowery, Simpson and Gavin Massey on the right and Sandro on the left. Robbie Weir and Liam Kelly are just settling in to be fair, but generally it was a good work out for us.”

Paul McCallum watched on from the bench at Grosvenor Vale while Bowery, Simpson, Ollie Palmer and Armand Gnanduillet all played 45 minutes each.

Orient’s manager explained that the former West Ham United forward is still working his way back to full fitness. He also discussed why Scott Kashket and Freddy Moncur weren’t involved.

“We have five strikers and it’s difficult. We had to leave Paul out, he could have probably played some part at Wealdstone,” said Hessenthaler.

“With his situation where he isn’t up to speed like the other four, I’ve had a good chat with him. He feels the same as me that he is a little bit short of where he needs to be so he’s working with Simone Lucchesi the fitness coach.

“Paul has done extra work before the Wealdstone game and that’ll be the case for the rest of the week and maybe the Dover match. He’ll come and do extra work and then we’ll assess him from there.

“With Scott it was a case of the same with young Freddy. We didn’t bring him because we have four central midfield players and I don’t want to bring players just to sit in the stands.”

Orient supporters didn’t get a chance to see Kashket or Moncur, but did witness various new signings and almost all of the east Londoners eight additions this summer have a promotion on their CV.

Hessenthaler added: “One of the things that attracted me to our new signings was that they’ve got promotions like Robbie Weir.

“With Kelly he was player of the year for Oldham in League One and Massey the same at Colchester. ‘Parkesy’ was at Bristol Rovers and they went up.

“All these players are a good age as well so hopefully they can help us get promoted and then having been in League One, they can handle it there again. That was the main thinking on them and they’ve definitely improved the squad.”