Richie Wellens admitted his Leyton Orient side were fortunate after they snapped their losing run with a 2-1 win at Blackpool.
The O’s ended a dismal five-game streak in Sky Bet League One thanks to Charlie Kelman’s brace but Wellens had to concede it was a tough game to watch.
“It was an important win, obviously, but we’d played really well in some of the games in this five-game run, and we’ve got away with one today,” he said.
“Tactically, I didn’t enjoy it one little bit. There were too many off it, and too many chances given away from transition. I think Blackpool are one of the best teams in the league in transition and we didn’t have enough people getting to the ball.
“Our decision making was all right, but we were passing in front of them, and not really hurting them. We’re trying to play football to penetrate teams and it was too easy to defend against in the first 20 minutes.
“The work rate was there. We worked so hard but we didn’t work smart today at all. We showed a great resilience and we responded to the equaliser but we got away with it, they should have won the game.
“I thought (goalkeeper) Josh Keeley was our best player. And I’m pleased for him, when you’re a young goalkeeper and you’re starting out in your career, his first full season in league football, maybe I’d have taken him out if I’d had an experienced goalkeeper fit and ready to play, but we’ve not had that luxury. I thought he was outstanding, though. Josh and Charlie Kelman were the two reasons why we got three points today.”
Blackpool boss Steve Bruce was left scratching his head as he reflected on some fantastic chances for his side to score that went begging.
But, with only Sonny Carey’s goal on the board, he will wonder how – among a host of glaring misses for the hosts – Ashley Fletcher fired over an open goal and Jake Beesley chipped onto the roof of the net with only Keeley to beat.
He said: “I think everybody who witnessed that game will go home and say ‘how the hell have we not won that?
“It’s the most important part, taking your chances, and they were really big chances, hideous chances that we’ve missed and it’s cost us.
“We’ve given a poor second goal away when we got caught up in the emotion of us scoring but overall I thought to a man they were terrific, we just haven’t taken our chances which is the crucial area for football.
“There’s a frustration that we’ll all feel tonight because, to a man, they were magnificent.
“I can’t say they weren’t golden chances, that’s the frustration. It wasn’t just half chances, I think we had 22 shots on goal but Beesley’s chance and Fletcher’s chance don’t reflect that because they don’t hit the target.
“It was total domination in my opinion and when you’re like that you’ve got to score and we’ve been hit by a sucker-punch with the second goal but overall I’m wondering how we haven’t won it.”
He added: “We can miss chances but their second goal was too many individual errors and people caught up in the emotion of getting back into the game, and we killed ourselves letting in a really, really poor goal. They didn’t have to do much to score it.
“It was a top-class performance, we just didn’t get the result.”
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