Justin Edinburgh praised Josh Koroma’s attitude after the Leyton Orient youngster continued his impressive start to pre-season against Concord Rangers at the weekend.

The 19-year-old stepped off the bench and scored the winner against the National League South side on Saturday, taking his tally to six goals during an excellent pre-season for the Orient academy graduate.

Koroma’s versatility has proven to be useful for Edinburgh since his arrival in November, with the O’s head coach deploying him both out wide as well as up front and the youngster flourished towards the end of last season, notching three goals in six games in April.

His form is now giving Edinburgh a real selection headache ahead of the opening game of the National League season in two weeks’ time and the O’s head coach praised the way that Koroma has returned to pre-season training.

Speaking to Leyton Orient’s website, Edinburgh said: “His (Koroma’s) attitude from coming back to pre-season has been excellent. He’s transformed and is full of confidence. He’s certainly pushing for a starting place come the first game of the season.

“But that is the same for everyone. I see fierce competition throughout the squad and that’s what I want. We don’t, as staff, want the team to be picking itself. We want people to be giving us problems and I think today, there are more problems to be had.”

The O’s got off to a slow start on Saturday and they found themselves 2-0 down after 15 minutes thanks to a long range strike from Concord’s Billy Knott as well as Nana Boakye-Yiadom’s close range header from a corner.

Orient pulled one back just after the half-hour mark when last season’s top scorer Macauley Bonne continued his bright start to pre-season by slotting a low effort past Sam Beasant.

Bonne dragged the O’s back on level terms just ten minutes after half-time, when he was left with a simple finish from close range after Myles Judd’s deflected cross.

The comeback was complete when Koroma stepped off the bench and notched the winner with seven minutes remaining, as he bundled home Charlie Lee’s long throw at the far post.

While disappointed with the way that the O’s started the game, Edinburgh was pleased with the team’s character during a tough test at the Aspect Arena.

He said: “It was purposely designed to come here. They’re tough opponents and have some experienced players. But they are the kind of games we are going to endure throughout the campaign. After a sluggish start, Concord took the lead and rightly so. I thought we worked our way back into it and finished the game strongly.

“I think we will be disappointed with the goals, certainly the second one as we’ve switched off from a short corner. We’ve been very good so far during pre-season with set-pieces. I just thought we were on the back foot. We looked half a yard short.

“But credit to the players. I thought Marvin Ekpiteta and Dan Happe were a little bit dominated by the opposition in the first half but certainly in the second half, they stepped on them and were more aggressive and kept us compact, allowing our midfield and front players to play in the right areas.”