Leyton Orient boss believes his side deserved to win and that life was easier facing Peterborough United without Ronnie Edwards

Wellens felt aggrieved to come away from Tuesday night with just a point and believes that his side were by far and away the better of the two for 84 minutes of the match.

Orient have now taken seven points from their last three games after opening the campaign with four straight defeats. They ended the night 16th.

Posh visited the Gaughan Group Stadium last April and were 2-1 victors thanks to goals from Hector Kyprianou and Ephron Mason-Clark. Wellens believes that Orient’s plans to press in that match were thwarted by Ronnie Edwards but that he did not feel Posh would be able play out of it so easily this season given the departure of Edwards.

He said: “We absolutely should have won. We’ve had a wacky five or six minutes against a team who, in terms of their counter attack, are a level above this league.

“We started on the front foot, went 1-0 up and then for three or four minutes before their goal, you could feel we stopped doing what had got us success in the game.

We started playing in front of them too much and risking reverse passes in the middle of the pitch and if you do that against teams like this, you will get counter attacked.

Their goal from our throw is a joke. When the ball is going into the box, you should always be right side of your man and, as a midfield player, your job is to make sure they don’t counter. It’s not to run past him to score, it’s to make sure you don’t get countered. We let people run past run, we didn’t block the runs or make a foul.

“Credit to them, I imagine their team talk would have been a lot different if it wasn’t for those two goals but for 84 minutes, we were easily the best team.

“We were outstanding, energetic and the press was good.

“Last year, we played them and we were just petering out and we decided to press them then but they had players like Ronnie Edwards who would step up. We didn’t feel they could do that to us tonight but we realise if we don’t get it right, the front three are quick and can run away from you.

“I’m disappointed not to get three points but they’re a good team and whenever you go 2-1 behind, the risk is getting hit on the counter. Do you sit off and let them pass you to death? No ,we continued well doing what we were doing. I’m proud of the players because they responded well and we should have won.”