Surprise hotel stay does Jay no harm
LEYTON ORIENT boss Ian Hendon played down the importance of his side’s victory against York City that saw them improve on a run of only two wins in 12 league games before kick-off.
It was an odd week for the O’s, who spent every night since last weekend’s defeat to Hartlepool in a hotel and away from their families – on the orders of Italian owner Francesco Becchetti.
But the unorthodox move clearly paid off as star striker Jay Simpson netted twice to ensure his side edged a five-goal thriller and stayed inside the play-off spots.
“Jay’s had a little quiet spell and it was only a matter of time before he started scoring again. I’m pleased for him today for getting two goals,” said Hendon.
“I wouldn’t say the win was vital but it’s another victory and another three points towards the title. On the balance of play I wasn’t concerned because we created more than them, they had a couple of chances before the end, but on the whole yet again we controlled the game and could have come out much bigger victors.
“You talk about chances that they’ve created, but we’ve got a back four there that haven’t played together so it’s going to take some time for them to get settled."
The O’s were the dominate teams from the off and after hitting the bar through Jack Payne in the opening minute soon had the lead when Mathieu Baudry headed in powerfully from a corner.
With the lead doubled just before the break with the first of Simpson’s two goals, the game looked at ease, however, Vadaine Oliver pulled one back almost immediately thanks to a deflection.
Simpson was on hand with a fantastic solo effort on 64 minutes that flew across Scott Flinders into the right of the goal, but York caused some late drama through Oliver’s headed eqauliser. York boss Jackie McNamara came close to leaving with a point late on but acknowledged his side need to start games better if they are to end their losing run.
“We wait for things to go wrong before we can fix it or make something so I’m very disappointed with the goals we lost, but I know what we need to do and we need to change a few things,” he said.
“We’ve come away from home and scored two, we could have had another few and I don’t think they made many opportunities against us in the second half which makes it even more frustrating.
“The belief was better in the second half and not worrying about making mistakes going forward, we also had an extra bit of energy, but again, something has to go wrong before we start doing that.”