Leyton Orient boss hopes to get attacker back soon

The 26-year-old joined from Crewe on a two-year deal in the summer, but has yet to make an appearance for the O’s due to injury.

And Wellens admitted he is looking forward to working with the London-born attacker as he tries to lift O’s up the League One table. 

“We miss him. Pace, power, goals. We signed him for that and unfortunately we haven’t been able to utilise it,” Wellens told the club website.

“We signed him from Crewe and he scored 16 goals in a team that for the majority of the season was mid to bottom of the table.

“He’s got pace, power and when he breaks he runs to the goal to score.

“We signed him to replace Paul Smyth in terms of numbers, goals and assists. 

“He’s a fantastic lad, always smiling, even though it’s been a hard three or four months for him.

“We’re confident when he does get back fit, good lad around the changing room, good personality, bubbly.

“Hopefully we can get him on the pitch soon and start seeing the fruits of that in terms of his goalscoring.”

O’s head to Burton Albion at the weekend, on the back of a last-gasp 2-2 draw at Northampton in midweek.

Rob Hunt put them ahead at Sixfields, but the hosts hit back with a quickfire Sam Hoskins brace early in the second half.

Kieron Bowie was then sent off and O’s made use of their extra man in stoppage time when substitute Shaq Forde levelled.

The point gained left O’s in 12th place, just behind Burton on goal difference, and Wellens is hoping O’s can get something at the Pirelli Stadium on Saturday.

“We’ve seen when the game can be really comfortable, but when you play away from home if you let little things and decisions go against you, in terms of the first half the crowd was never in it for them,” he added.

“But second half, the crowd was really good and you have to manage that.

“I think we’ve got a really good team, some of the play is really good, but we are young and we do have to ride those little errors that can cost us.

“We are missing Prats [Darren Pratley] and Becks [Omar Beckles] at the moment in terms of their experience and stature.

“But I am conscious in the next few weeks, depending on whether our Port Vale game will be on or off, we’re playing Saturday-Tuesday, Saturday-Tuesday, so we need to manage the squad better.”