Steve Davis has called on his players to be courageous and believes they showed fear during their 2-1 defeat against AFC Fylde.

The defeat makes it five National League games on the spin without a win for the O’s and they dropped to 15th in the table.

Orient looked nervy in the opening exchanges in front of a frustrated Brisbane Road crowd and Davis says his players must be braver.

Davis said: “They did seem nervous and we spoke about that again after the game. I spoke to Ross [Embleton] and he thought they looked a bit nervous and fearful.

“My response to that is that we can’t afford to be fearful playing in front of a Leyton Orient crowd who have great expectations with this club and want to move forward.

“We have got to be courageous and not be fearful. I always encourage the players to express themselves and enjoy playing and today we were a little bit edgy for some reason.”

Orient were their own worst enemy at times and both goals were avoidable, with the first deflecting through a week wall at a free-kick.

Danny Rowe was then allowed time and space to smash his second in from distance in the earyl stages of the second half.

Davis was disappointed with the manner of the goals and was particularly critical of the sloppy manner in which Orient started the second period.

He said: “That is frustrating from my point of view, because we say the right things at half-time and try and get them to believe in what we are going to do in the second half. Within three minutes it is all undone.

“It is concentration and maybe that is why they play at that level, because they haven’t got those concentration levels.”