Leyton Orient manager Kenny Jackett praises some of the individual performances although disappointed to crash out of the Papa John's Trophy in a penalty shoot-out against League One side MK Dons.
A tightly contented affair, The O’s were the side who forged the best chances, but couldn’t find the decisive goal, before Ruel Sotiriou’s miss in the penalty shootout proved costly.
“That was the opportunity for them, we got the ball in a lot of good areas in the first-half without being able to find the goals, Ruel (Sotiriou) hit the bar and we had opportunities right the way through the game,” Jackett said.
“At the end from the corners we had two off the line and then going into penalties, unfortunately we’ve lost it 5-4, Ruel is usually for us very safe and maybe got to look at his technique. He has good power, but struck the bar too many times now.
“He has to make adjustments, as a goal scorer he has to take penalties, and it turned out to be a key one. We’re disappointed to be out of the competition, but MK Dons put a good team out, and we gave a good account of ourselves.
“Individually there was some good performances by quite a number of players from Adam Thompson and down. Mainly young players. I was very pleased and for us we have to keep working them in.”
Defender Adam Thompson made his first competitive start in more than nine months.
“It is, I was pleased with his positioning, his talking, his passing as I was with Alex Mitchell, and Dan Happe.”
Dan Nkumrah made his first-team debut in the match in a forward line made up of himself, Sotiriou and Tyrese Omotoye while the boss was also impressed by all of the youngsters.
“He played in pre-season, he has trained with us, and he’s still of youth team age. There was some good link up play down the left hand side.
“Matty Young I felt played very well, so good performances, and I'm pleased for them. He and Hector Kyprianou grew into the game, switched the play, and made the right passes at the right time.”
Rhys Byrne picked up his four clean sheets in as many games in the Trophy.
“One penalty went underneath him, I don’t think he had any opportunities with the rest, but he’ll learn from it.
“That’s four games where he has been very solid for 90 minutes.”
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