Charlie Lee believes Leyton Orient have a bright future ahead of them after the impressive performances of the club’s younger players.

The likes of Sam Ling, Marvin Ekpiteta, Myles Judd and Dan Happe have all impressed recently, particularly against Wrexham, with the latter being named as the club’s Young Player of the Year having made 31 appearances in all competitions this campaign.

Head coach Justin Edinburgh has shown that he’s not afraid to give younger players a chance this season, with Josh Koroma also featuring prominently and Charles Clayden making his first-team debut against Gateshead.

But Lee has been particularly impressed with Orient’s young defensive quartet of Ling, Ekpiteta, Judd and Happe and believes they have all warranted their first team opportunities this campaign.

Speaking last week, Lee said: “There has been no doubt in our head that those four players who played at the back are good enough.

“Marvin has been exceptional since he has come in from day one. His mentality to learn is as good as I’ve ever seen and we’ve had no doubts that he is ready to play. He has been exceptional and has been very good.

“Myles Judd has been out injured but he came back in at left back and was immense. I think we’ve signed the best right back in the league this year in Sam Ling, so to get him in was great and that’s even before we come on to Dan Happe.”

It has been a frustrating debut season for Lee at Brisbane Road, with an anterior cruciate ligament injury sustained in training back in August ruling him out for much of the campaign.

However, the 31-year-old got his first taste of match action under Justin Edinburgh as a late substitute against Wrexham just over a week ago and after playing the second half against Maidenhead, he was handed his first start since August on the final day against Gateshead.

Despite injury problems, it has proven to be a relatively successful second half of the season for Orient under Edinburgh, who guided the club to a 13th place finish in the league, and Lee has been impressed with the O’s head coach so far.

He said: “He’s done really well. It’s a hard thing to put your finger on what was going wrong or what was happening and obviously you get in a rut and it must be hard for a manager to come into that sort of environment.

“But he’s done everything he can and I think nobody will take away what we’ve done since he’s come in. We’ve lost games but we’ve lost them in the right way.

“We’ve worked hard. It will be good to have a nice pre-season working with the manager and getting a pre-season, which we didn’t really have this season. I’m really looking forward to it believe it or not.”