Leyton Orient boss Richie Wellens is still looking to bolster his squad but admits they might not get any more bodies in the building before Saturday’s League One opener against Wanderers.
Brisbane Road is the starting point of the new campaign, and Wellens has identified two locations where the O’s are currently thin on the ground.
Following their friendly victory over Dagenham and Redbridge on Saturday, he stated on the club’s channels, “I think we need a couple.”
Given that Theo (Archibald) won’t be returning until January, we will merely need to handle Jordan Graham, who could falter at any time based on the position he occupies on our bench.While DJ (Diallang Jaiyesimi) and Ollie (O’Neill) are proficient left-handers, Sonny Perkins is a left-hander who also excels right-handed.
“I would like someone who can play on the right to give us more options and I would like another midfield player.”
“We may have a couple more in the next two to three weeks, whether we get them in for the start or not,” the manager continued.
Although he anticipates a difficult test, Wellens, 44, thinks his team will get off to a good start this weekend against Wanderers, where they ended 11th the previous season.
“Looking at Bolton’s preseason schedule, you can see that they played against some really elite opposition—Fiorentina, Middlesbrough, and Stoke,” he continued.
“Bolton is a pretty good club that is fun to watch, quite consistent, and quite set in their ways, in my opinion. It’s challenging to play against them.
“I am going to try to run with it where we get two strikers on the pitch because I do believe that (Charlie Kelm and Dan Agyei) can both get double figures easily this year and maybe get up towards 20 goals.”
The O’s wrap up their pre-season schedule against Cheshunt tonight, although Wellens plans to manage minutes to make sure there is no fatigue come Saturday.
“The players who need minutes will play,” he explained. “We will take it as a serious game, I will be there. It won’t a youth game or anything like that.
“We will speak to the players and see how they feel. The most important thing is the preparation for the week.
“We will make sure that we train twice on the pitch which will give us good visuals and distances about what we are going to do in the first game of the season.
“We will make sure the players don’t run into fatigue where it spoils our training week but some of them will have minutes.”
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