Leyton Orient boss accepts blame after Stevenage defeat

O’s went into the contest buoyed by their win over Cambridge United a week earlier and saw Ruel Sotiriou hit the crossbar in the opening minutes.

But they then saw Manchester United loanee Charlie MacNeill put Boro ahead on 21 minutes, converting a Dan Butler free-kick.

And Dan Sweeney headed home a Butler cross on the stroke of half-time to double the advantage.

Nick Freeman completed a miserable day for the hosts with a 25-yard strike late on and Wellens told the club website: “I’ll take the blame.

“It’s really difficult when you have a performance like last week to change a team, but I’ve been contemplating all week, do we need to go bigger, go with Prats [Darren Pratley], maybe go with three at the back just to add more size to us because I thought they were really good.

“First 15 minutes we were very good, dominating the game, and Ruel has to score.

“But pretty quickly after that we concede from two set-plays and they managed the game well, made no mistakes.

“But it’s probably my fault, even though we had a brilliant performance [against Cambridge] I should’ve changed the team, I should’ve put more experience.

“We’re 22 years old, average age, against a team of men and I think physically we struggled.”

Wellens made five changes during the second half in a bid to get back into the match and Theo Archibald had a shot saved by Taye Ashby-Hammond.

But he admitted his side were second best on the day against Steve Evans’ men, adding: “We’ve only got ourselves to blame. Played too slow, played passes too small, to the next man, and didn’t open the game up like we did against Cambridge.

“We started the game ok. If we score that goal it’s a different game, but then their power took over.

“If you took a percentage of how many headers they’ve won compared to us – and heading is a part of the game – I would say they’re probably at 90 per cent.

“Set-plays, balls in the box is something we need to work on. Second balls, first contact, second contact.

“When we’ve got so many young players, it’s a learning curve for us.

“I thought they were outstanding, we give them credit. Powerful, full of men, and really good in both boxes.

“We were just too small and not physically right and I take the blame for that.”

O’s turn their attention to the EFL Trophy in midweek and a trip to Gillingham and Wellens revealed he would make changes.

“It’s a competition we want to do well in,” he said.

“I think we’ve got the squad to do it now everybody is coming back from injuries.

“We’ll be approaching it properly. We’ll make seven or eight changes obviously, we’ve got good players who are on the bench or not in the squad and need some game time.

“We’ll be making a lot of changes but we’ll be taking it serious.”