FC Halifax Town 1-2 Leyton Orient: We lacked quality, admits Town boss

Tom Denton briefly levelled the score after Macauley Bonne’s opener, but Josh Koroma netted what turned out to be the winner before half-time.

“The difference between the two sides was they took their chances at the right times,” Heath said.

“I think we’ve had as many chances but they took theirs.

“Both the goals we conceded were disappointing, but we had a key chance just before half-time.

“If that goes in it gives us a lift. But we started slowly second-half.

“We had a 15 minute spell then when we were well on top but we couldn’t get the goal.

“The players put a shift in. They’re giving everything they can, but we’re just lacking a bit of quality at times.”

Heath was unhappy at his side’s defending for both Orient goals.

“I thought they were avoidable and we made wrong choices,” he said.

“We’re making a few of those at the minute but we’ve got to keep going.

“If you’re going to achieve what we need to, which is to stay in this league, we’ve got to try to get back to keeping clean sheets.

“When you play 4-4-2 you’re a bit more susceptible to conceding without the third man in midfield.

“I think it broke down from our attack for their second goal, then we’ve got stretched and we’ve made a wrong choice, it’s been slipped inside and Michael Collins has got a two v one against him, and then it’s in the net.”

The Town boss was also not happy at his team’s attempts to get back into the game.

“The disappointing thing for me is the last 20 minutes because we seemed to panic a bit,” said Heath, who reiterated the need to sign a couple of new players.

“We tried to go too long too quickly. We’d said we’re 2-1 down and the next goal’s going to be massive but don’t panic if it gets to 15, 20 minutes to go, we’ve got to keep mixing it up.

“The players are desperately trying to get three points. We introduced Hibbsy to try to get more creativity but that didn’t really come off. It just got bypassed.”

Town were booed off by a section of supporters at full-time, while there were also chants of “Heath out”, to which the Halifax boss responded: “I can understand the frustration. It’s not where we want to be, but it’s not going to help.

“I can understand it, we’re not winning matches so that’s how it is. But it never helps.”