Matt Taylor not worried by performance as Exeter secure narrow win over Orient

Posted Wednesday, February 09, 2022 by PA

Exeter manager Matt Taylor said he could not care less about performances after his side scored a dramatic stoppage-time winner to see off Orient.

Cheick Diabate, the latest in a long list of players to come through the Grecians’ excellent academy, notched the only goal of a dire game when he headed in a free-kick from Archie Collins two minutes into stoppage time.

It was a huge boost to Exeter’s promotion hopes and the dramatic nature of the win came three days after two goals in the last five minutes saw them come from behind to win 2-1 at Swindon.

“I think people have to understand the context of the game,” Taylor said.

“Leyton Orient have been on a poor run of form and they set their team up in a certain way tonight and that was to stifle us, disrupt us and be physical.

“We got our reward for our team going right to the end and I am delighted for Cheick to come up with the winner, another boost for one of our academy graduates.

“Six months ago, we would have lost that game of football because we wouldn’t have had the resilience to keep on going when it wasn’t going to be our night in terms of the way we want to play our football, but there are different ways to win a game of football.

“That set piece had to be perfect and we managed to get one of the big boys on the end of it. It didn’t feel like our night in terms of our clean play and too many people had an off night, but there are different ways to win a game of football and I couldn’t care less about the performance if we keep on winning games of football.”

It is now nine games without a win for Orient manager Kenny Jackett.

He said: “It is a hard one to take. It is not a foul, he has given it for a tangle off the ball, the guy has run into Omar (Beckles) and gone down. It is nowhere near the ball, I have watched it again.

“It is a very harsh free-kick and from there we did get it wrong. It is a free header in the middle of the goal and we need to be better than that and we have got better defenders than that, particularly at that stage of the game.

“We had big chances, probably the best chances in the game. At the moment we are not putting those away.

“We have had decent performances and today was a good performance. We can’t say we played badly and were outclassed. We had big chances in the game.”