Dan Holman will not return to Leyton Orient this summer, with the O’s looking to strengthen the spine of their team during the off season.

Holman spent the second half of the season on loan with Orient from Cheltenham Town, but only found the net once in ten appearances for the O’s and his campaign was brought to a premature end due to a foot injury.

But despite being released by Cheltenham, Holman will not return to Brisbane Road permanently this summer according to director of football Martin Ling, who also confirmed that Matt Harrold will be ruled out until September.

Ling said: “We feel like we definitely need one striker and maybe two, especially with Matt Harrold being out until September with his injury. That won’t be Dan Holman. It will be someone new.”

The 51-year-old, who oversees player recruitment as part of his role, also hinted that there wouldn’t be wholesale changes this summer, although he confirmed the O’s are on the lookout for a midfielder during the transfer window.

“We feel up front and central midfield are the areas we need players,” he said.

“We think we are blessed with four quality centre backs, four quality wingers and three quality left full-backs. We are pretty happy with the squad but we do feel that through the middle at centre midfield and centre forward are the main areas we need to fit someone into.”

One of the midfielders could be Ebou Adams, with Ling confirming last Friday that the O’s remain in talks with the young midfielder, as we have previously reported.

However, leaving the club this summer will be Romuald Boco, Christian Scales and Jake Caprice who were all made available for transfer by the club two weeks ago.

Both Boco and Scales have not featured for the O’s under Justin Edinburgh, with the latter spending the second half of the season on loan at Harlow Town, while Caprice fell out of favour in March after losing his place at right-back to Sam Ling.

Nathan Mavila was also released by the club at the end of his short-term contract, having failed to make an appearance for the O’s since arriving from Wingate and Finchley earlier this year, and Ling provided more information on the quartet’s departures.

He said: “There is no interest in them as yet. Scales and Boco didn’t feature at all for Justin and pastures new would be best for them. Jake Caprice is not what Justin wants of his full-backs and we’ve also brought in Sam Ling. You’ve also got Myles Judd whose contract we extended. It’s been expressed to all three that they would be better to move on to pastures new.

“The only player released as such was the young lad Nathan Mavila who was under contract. We feel he did ok but that he was maybe one level down from here, so probably Conference South. So we were quite comfortable with our releases.”