Richie Wellens labels Orient performance in Shrewsbury defeat worst of his reign

Posted Sunday, September 01, 2024 by PA

Leyton Orient manager Richie Wellens was scathing of his team after their 3-0 defeat at Shrewsbury and labelled it the worst performance since he took over.

It left the Os rooted the foot of the fledgling League One table after a fourth successive defeat to launch the season.

Shrewsbury had lost their first three games but changed their fortunes emphatically as on-loan Chelsea midfielder Leo Castledine marked his professional debut with a goal before Thomas Bloxham’s late brace sealed victory.

Castledine opened the scoring in the 22nd minute after latching on to Tommi O’Reilly’s perfectly weighted through-ball to fire beyond Zach Hemming.

Daniel Agyei skimmed the crossbar for the visitors before Bloxham doubled the advantage with a superb strike from 25 yards and then wrapped the game up with his second five minutes into stoppage time.

Wellens said in an interview on Orient’s X feed: “I think since I’ve been at the club it’s the worst performance overall.

“Credit to them (Shrewsbury) because they dug in, they fought, they played with intensity, they pressed and in the first half we’ve had 75 per cent possession of the ball but no crosses, too slow, too lethargic.

“I warned the players before the game that we’ve been brilliant against Birmingham, Bolton, Charlton and even though we’ve lost we’ve done a lot of things well.

“And no disrespect to Shrewsbury but this is a game we thought we could win today. But we’ve come here and completely forgot the basics. Too many straight passes, too slow. We were just really really poor.

“I want to apologise to the supporters because that is not acceptable but also thank them because they clapped the players at the end and they didn’t deserve to be clapped.”

Shrewsbury boss Paul Hurst hailed his side’s work ethic as they got their season up and running.

Hurst told Shrewsbury’s official website: “Nothing’s easy and at times throughout the afternoon Orient had a lot of the ball and I think we know that but what we did do well is limit their opportunities and I think they’ve only had one shot on target.

“I thought we worked very hard and were very disciplined and I thought the goals, especially the first two, were very, very good for different reasons and were worthy of winning any game and the third right at the end was the icing on top of the cake.”

Hurst was also delighted to see the Shrews record a first clean sheet of the season.

He added: “We spoke about that. It’s been a long time and yes at various points there are reasons why perhaps you’re conceding goals, but you always give yourselves a chance (with a clean sheet).

“We want to try and be harder to play against and I thought today we were on the back of the Huddersfield game as well in terms of that was another performance where we looked more solid.

“We’ve got to keep that going because we know the challenges that lie ahead.”