Dean Brill felt as though the goals that Leyton Orient conceded in their 3-2 loss to Crawley Town at the weekend were “poor” and that they must do better in those defensive situations.

Orient failed to clear the ball despite numerous chances when Nathan Ferguson fired in Crawley’s first, and substitute and former O’s player Ollie Palmer was allowed to score twice in quick succession, the second an easy tap-in.

Speaking after the game, Brill said: “[It was] very disappointing. We hadn’t conceded a goal at home in our first two and then to concede three very poor goals is very disappointing.

“Performance-wise I thought we were in control of the game and played some really good stuff and controlled the affair. Then the sucker punches killed us and it’s not really good enough from a defensive point of view and a team point of view.

“I’m not sure we’ve conceded a good goal yet this season. Me saying that as a goalkeeper doesn’t look great but as a team I don’t think anybody has really cut us open yet and scored a great goal so it’s up to us now to really focus and get back to the base that we had last year of being really proud of not conceding goals and if we did concede goals, we didn’t concede two or three, it was the one to give us a chance to go and win the game.”

Orient were forced into a slight defensive change following Joe Widdowson’s injury, reverting to a four-man defence from their usual five, but Brill agreed with interim head coach Ross Embleton in that the goals did not come as a result of that change.

He said: “You could have played two at the back or one at the back, but the goals don’t come from that. Like I said, we don’t get cut open. The ball comes into our box and we’ve got bodies in the box.

“Second and third phase, we’ve got to mark. Space doesn’t score, and if we don’t mark the men then they get a free chance to score. Like I said, it’s not good enough.”

Despite the mistakes at the back, there were still positive performances on the pitch from the front players, and Brill praised the quality that the O’s have in those area, including the new front three of Lee Angol, Conor Wilkinson and Louis Dennis.

He said: “They’re good players. Ling [Sam Ling] came in at right-back and looked a threat side and we get Broph [James Brophy] on the ball, Josh Wright joins in. We’ve got some great footballers, we play some great football and we’re set up to do that.

“It’s great that the front boys are scoring but like I said we can’t concede three goals at home, and score two at home, and expect to win. We need to give them the chances but we also need to be ruthless at the other end of the pitch, all of us.”

Although it was the second time this season the O’s have conceded three in a game, Brill insists it is something they will work on ahead of the trip to Salford City this weekend.

He said: “We’ll put it to bed, we’ll watch it back and we’ll work hard this week. I don’t think there’s loads wrong, there really isn’t loads wrong. We’re obviously conceding sloppy goals which for me is just a mentality that we need to get back to, which we will do as a group and going forward we can only learn. “It’s early in the season and I think we’ve shown that we’re good enough to match anybody."