O’s player-manager keen for team to stay grounded

After achieving impressive success at Oxford, Morecambe are next visitors to Brisbane Road this weekend

Leyton Orient player-manager Kevin Nolan has warned his team not to get carried away with Saturday’s win at Oxford United.

The O’s earned an excellent 1-0 triumph at the Kassam Stadium last weekend to move back into the League Two play-off positions.

But it was a similar story for them in February when they won at Portsmouth and impressed many onlookers.

However, the following Saturday they suffered a 4-0 reverse to Northampton Town and Nolan is keen to keep his team grounded.

“I’ve gone on since I’ve been here about starting runs and getting unbeaten runs going and with us we seem to feel like we’re getting there,” said the Orient boss.

“After the game at Oxford I said to the boys ‘this is a fantastic result, but it only gives you three points.’ Just because you’ve beaten one of the big boys or top two or three it doesn’t give you any more points.

“It just sets you up because people will now think ‘oh they’re a good side’ so they will want to be beating us.”

The former West Ham United captain highlighted the celebrations of Luton Town at Brisbane Road earlier this month as an indication of how much teams want to defeat Orient.

Hatters manager Nathan Jones was extremely happy with the result and Orient don’t want to be humbled much more before the end of the season.

Nolan added: “You could see in Luton’s celebrations after the final whistle how much it meant to them to beat us. That is what the lads have got to take on now, we have a good squad with a good group of lads.

“They need to realise people are going to want to defeat us so they have got to match them and get our quality better.

“We will be working hard this week to try and get that quality better, we have done it last week and seen it come into fruition at Oxford.”

Even though the O’s delivered an excellent display at the Kassam Stadium, Nolan was impressed with their resilience.

He hopes they can keep that up and believes it will help them pick up results if they aren’t at their best.

“I’m delighted with the team ethic and work rate at this moment in time, I said that to them after the game. Long may it continue and we’ll be working hard to make sure we do that,” said Nolan.

“At the end of the day, sometimes you’re not going to show up and be at your best, but if you have that resilience, determination and confidence that nobody will score a goal against you then it sometimes earns you a point when you are not so good.”