Lee Johnson talks up Fleetwood after win over Leyton Orient

Posted Sunday, October 01, 2023 by PA

Lee Johnson was delighted with his Fleetwood players after they got their first win of the League One campaign, beating Leyton Orient 1-0.

The Cod Army had to withstand early pressure before Jack Marriott hit the game’s only goal 10 minutes into the second half.

And manager Johnson was happy that his team got to show their quality after weathering the early storm.

“First and foremost I’m delighted with the first win of the season, both for myself and, mainly, for the players and the staff,” said Johnson, who got his maiden win in charge.

“If I’m honest the first 20 minutes was really poor from us, I thought we were passive, we didn’t play with anywhere near the right enthusiasm, both to press and to make angles and space for our team-mates, we had to change our shape a little bit and we got a lot closer to Leyton Orient and from 30 minutes on we were the better side.

“We could have had a second but we stayed organised and the work we did on the training ground bore fruit and that’s nice to see.

“They had half-chances early on but we made them look like Barcelona by not applying pressure. We have to be a front-foot pressing team, that’s my style and that’s what I demand.

“Once we did that you can see the quality of individual players coming out, because there are good players in that dressing room. They are getting fitter and starting to show what they’re about.

“I’m delighted for Jack to get his first goal of the season and he’s going to be so important for us.”

O’s manager Richie Wellens was critical of his side’s failure to make their early pressure count.

Though they rallied late on in a bid to salvage a point, they returned home empty-handed, with second yellow cards shown to Fleetwood’s Carl Johnston and Orient’s Ethan Galbraith the final act of the afternoon.

“We’ve wasted three points today,” said Wellens.

“In the first half hour we were totally dominant, the atmosphere in here was really quiet, they’ve obviously been struggling and we had an opportunity to be ruthless and we should have been one or two up.

“Fair play to them, they stuck at it and turned the game around with about 10 minutes to go in the first half, and then we started the second half really poorly.

“They got the crowd involved, but I still think it’s a game we should have won. We had a couple of chances late on but with the amount of balls we’ve had in the box and with the amount of opportunities early on, the amount of situations we had in the first half we’ve got to score, and if you don’t then you run the risk of the opposition coming into it.

“Fair play to Fleetwood, they ran a little bit more, won second balls and won a few duels and that’s probably won them the game. We’ve got to take shots on, we turned too many shots down.

“We need to be more ruthless, attack quicker and make decisions quicker and if we do that we probably win the game today.”