Soccer
Leyton Orient manager Richie Wellens thrilled after hammering Bromley
Leyton Orient manager Richie Wellens marvelled at the quality his team produced as they piled on the misery for Bromley with a thumping 5-0 victory at Hayes Lane.
The O’s bounced back from their home loss against Barnsley last Saturday in real style as Jaze Kabia and Yusuf Akhamrich both scored twice in a one-sided London derby.
Bromley had not lost any of their previous 27 league games on their own turf, but the last week has been a rough learning experience that has seen them concede 12 goals in their last two matches.
Wellens said: “Our intensity to get to the ball was superb, our desire to get on the first contact was very good, and after that the football was unbelievable at times.
“It’s not easy to play football like that, it doesn’t matter who you’re playing against, but I thought at times we were outstanding.
“Football is about passers and runners, and a lot of the time they had to swap their wingers over because we kept getting in down the right-hand side.
“I thought Charlie [Wellens], Yusuf and Fin [Stevens] down that right-hand side were absolutely outstanding and they had to swap their wingers across.
“Even though we played some outstanding football – I don’t know what the possession was, I don’t know how many passes we played – we didn’t just get obsessed with passing.
“If people step on to you, you need to get in places down the side and I thought we mixed it up really well.”
Kabia headed in Akhamrich’s cross to put Orient ahead after 36 minutes before the latter doubled their lead less than a minute after half-time.
Akhamrich then bent in a third from outside the box, with Kabia bundling in his second from a corner before Armando Dobra finished the rout in stoppage time.
Bromley boss Andy Woodman said: “We’ve got to grow up a little bit quicker than we are at the moment and make sure we become a little bit tougher and more aggressive than we are in everything we do.
“The biggest thing for me is I don’t like the way we’re conceding.
“I never like conceding. This football club is built on clean sheets, it’s been built on desire, commitment, and it certainly hasn’t been built on a soft underbelly.
“At the moment we’re just seeing a bit of a soft underbelly, which I don’t like.
“You wouldn’t believe we’d not been beaten here since March 2025, and then we go and get pumped five.
“It’s a bitter pill to swallow and were we 5-0 worse off? You could argue ‘no’, but I think, yes, we were. It’s no good me saying ‘no’ because we were.
“We crumbled like a pack of cards second half.”
