Orient boss realistic after loss
Leyton Orient manager Fabio Liverani is remaining upbeat, despite seeing his side lose to relegation rivals Crawley in League One.
Izale McLeod’s 33rd-minute penalty proved the difference between the two sides at the Checkatrade.com Stadium, as Orient were frustrated by good saves from Lewis Price and substitute keeper Brian Jensen.
Defeat left O’s still three points adrift of safety, with nine games remaining, and Liverani said: “The other results don’t change the league table so much.
“It’s a shame we haven’t got points, but the other teams lost as well, so nothing much has changed really.
Last week against Barnsley we deserved a win, but it didn’t happen, but the team played well.
“Until the penalty I think we dominated the game, created many chances then unfortunately we gifted away a penalty.
“But if you look at the whole match we created more chances than them. We had chances in the second half we just didn’t score.”
Liverani brought Dean Cox and Marvin Bartley into his starting line-up, in place of Jobi McAnuff and Bradley Pritchard.
But he saw Price deny Chris Dagnall, Darius Henderson and Cox, especially, with a stunning save to keep the scoreline blank in the opening half-hour.
And Luke O’Neill was then penalised for a challenge on McLeod, who picked himself up to slot home the spot-kick.
Liverani added: “With three games in eight days we had to change something because otherwise players get tired playing three games in a row.
“We only changed two players, Marvin Bartley and Dean Cox, who played quite well until he got taken off because he wasn’t fully fit.
“Everyone makes their own decisions. I do mine. I felt for my team some of the players are coming back from injuries so they struggle to play three games in a row so we made some little changes to give some minutes to other players.
“And I don’t think if I change two players out of the 11 that makes a difference, good or bad for the final result of the team.”
Crawley boss Dean Saunders was forced to replace the injured Price with veteran Jensen for the second half and he kept out substitute David Mooney and Ryan Hedges with particularly impressive saves as O’s chased the game.
Mooney was used in a central midfield role, while McAnuff and Jay Simpson were also sent on to improve Orient’s attacking options, but they could not force an equaliser, despite sending centre-back Scott Cuthbert up as an extra striker late on.
“In the second half they didn’t attack any more. They played a 4-5-1 formation so I wanted to give a bit more quality in midfield and complete more passes than before,” added Liverani.
“We didn’t have to defend so I thought Mooney was a good choice in central midfield and Cuthbert was put to centre forward for the last seven minutes of the game where we were playing long balls and we were trying to have some height in the penalty box.”
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