Leyton Orient boss Embleton insists self-isolation is proving 'frustrating'

The O’s crashed to a 2-1 defeat to Cambridge United on Boxing Day in his absence despite taking an early lead through Danny Johnson.

The boss admitted isolation feels much tougher than the UK lockdowns due to the fact of not being able to go out to do anything or be with his team.

“It’s frustrating as everybody that’s been through it would know, lockdown was bad enough for everybody, but at least we had the opportunity to escape here and there,” Embleton said.

“When you isolate it obviously takes a completely different turn and it’s frustrating for anybody to be stuck indoors.

“At the same time when it starts to impact your job and your livelihood it starts to have a knock on effect to everybody around you.

“The frustration is quite hard to describe to be honest.”

Assistant Danny Senda revealed they had a line into the ground from Embleton to help make decisions but the boss was keen to re-iterate what that exactly entailed.

“Just to clear up what the direct line looked like as it sounds as if it went straight into Danny Senda, Dean Brill and Matt Harrold in the dug-out but that wasn’t a possibility for us to get that communication.

“We had to alternate that between myself speaking to Joe Austin throughout the game and we were consistently talking to each other.

“When it came to substitutes it was about trying to get the message across as quickly as possible as we could so then it was a case of calling Martin Ling to pass that message down to the dug-out.

“Unfortunately from my perspective the direct line Danny mentioned didn’t really exist on the weekend and that makes it really difficult because I can’t get clarified messages over and the other side is they can’t talk back to me and it all becomes Chinese whispers.”

He added: “Horrible experience not being able to have communication with the players certainly and for that communication with the staff to be so limited.”