The U’s were National League leaders come the start of Saturday, but Orient put in an excellent display at Brisbane Road to win 4-1

Paul Doswell provided an honest assessment after watching his Sutton United team lose 4-1 away to Leyton Orient on Saturday.

The O’s had not won in the National League for 15 games before facing their south London rivals, but ended that run with a fine display.

Macauley Bonne opened the scoring after seven minutes from the penalty spot after Simon Walton had bundled over James Dayton.

Sutton pressed afterwards, but Dean Brill denied Ross Lafayette on two occasions before Matt Harrold made it 2-0 in the 53rd minute following a Jobi McAnuff free kick.

Bonne completed his brace with 10 minutes left after substitute David Mooney had hit the post and although Tommy Wright reduced the arrears for the U’s three minutes later, Dayton had the final say with a deflected effort from outside the area.

“It was two soft goals. I thought the first one was stupid on our part because it was a soft penalty,” said Doswell.

“We then had the best of the next 25 minutes and created three or four very good chances and at that point you need to get back in the game.

“It was corner after corner after corner, but the second goal was the killer. We gave away a soft free kick, we didn’t defend the cross and Harrold has a free header, which is not sensible on our part, and, at 2-0, the game is almost done and dusted.

“As I say, give credit to Orient. Justin (Edinburgh) has come in and had an impact in his first home game and I think that was to be expected.

“The only thing that is disappointing from our perspective is we knew the Orient players would be better, but we weren’t able to match them and that was key.”

Sutton’s manager went on to admit the O’s played very much like he likes his own side to play.

But Doswell questioned the inconsistency of the east Londoners’ players, with the Brisbane Road club 20th with only 24 points from their 24 fixtures this term and already onto their second manager after Steve Davis was sacked last month.

He added: “Give credit to Orient for the win because they have a very good side on paper and for 23 games that side hasn’t performed, but I thought they did very well.

“They very much played our type of game and had more energy than us and won the battles in both areas. I felt they won more headers than us and more tackles than us and that’s a good start for Justin.

“I made the point in our own club interview that the Orient players need to take a look at themselves because if they can play like that against us, then what have they been doing for the previous 23 games?”

As often is the case with Doswell, he speaks a lot of sense and the O’s squad need to make sure Saturday’s performance becomes more a regular occurrence.