Martin Ling has praised the impact of Justin Edinburgh since his appointment as head coach as well as his ‘clear vision’ for the club.

Edinburgh has helped to steady the ship at the Breyer Group Stadium since he took over from Steve Davis in November, who was sacked after a winless run of 11 league games had seen the O’s slip down to 19th place in the table.

Orient fans were fearing the worst at that stage, but Edinburgh’s appointment coincided with an upturn in fortunes, with the O’s finishing the campaign strongly, losing just two of their last eight matches in the National League.

In the end, the O’s secured a 13th place finish in the table and Edinburgh has also shown a willingness to give some of the club’s younger players a chance, with the likes of Josh Koroma, Marvin Ekpiteta, Myles Judd and Dan Happe all featuring regularly under the 48-year-old.

Charles Clayden was handed his professional debut by Edinburgh on the final day of the campaign against Gateshead, while young goalkeeper Sam Sargeant and teenage midfielder Ruel Sotiriou have also penned new contracts at Brisbane Road in recent weeks.

Following a promising start, many are now hopeful that Edinburgh will be able to spearhead a promotion charge next season and Ling has praised the former Northampton Town manager’s ‘clear vision’ for the club.

Ling said: “He (Edinburgh) was exactly as I expected. I played with Justin for three years but it was an awful long time ago. I think he was 18 and I was 21 when we played together at the start. He was a no nonsense defender at that age. He was a tough tackling full-back and knew what he had to do. He is the same as a manager really.

“The good thing about Justin is that he makes it easy to work with because he knows what he wants. We talk about players all the time and staffing issues and players throughout the club and he’s got a clear vision of what he wants his team to be like.

“He’s got a clear vision of what types of players he wants within that team and as a director of football, that’s good to have because that fits in to me talking to the players or talking to the players’ agents and trying to fetch the right blend into the club.

“We are sitting here in our summer months with a list of players that we’re making initial contact with and to fetch into the building. We feel like we’ve got a good squad sitting here as we have, but we still think we need two or three more players to top that up.”