Carl Fletcher says he is "honoured" to have landed the role of head coach at Leyton Orient.

The O's announced the appointment of Fletcher earlier this evening on a deal until the end of the 2020/21 season.

He joins the club with them 17th in the League Two table after Ross Embleton oversaw the opening two months of the season in an interim capacity.

Speaking to the club website, Fletcher said: "[It feels] really good. I'm really excited and I'm really honoured as well to be given the job. I'm really looking forward to the challenges ahead.

"There are a few people that I've spoken to that know about Leyton Orient. There seems to be a really good family feel, it seems like there are good people at the club. Everything about it seems to tick a lot of boxes and I'm really lucky and honoured to be here to try and push things forward."

Fletcher has been away from first-team management since his departure from Plymouth Argyle in 2013, where he kept them in the Football League under difficult financial circumstances, but he felt like the time was right to come back into a managerial role after spending time at Bournemouth as a youth team coach and a loan manager.

He said: "I feel like I've matured, I've got better and I've learnt a lot.

"Looking back at the time at Plymouth, I was too young, I didn't have enough knowledge. Obviously hindsight is a wonderful thing but at the time it seemed the right thing to do.

"My journey since then has been a good one and I've learnt so much in five or six years that I feel like I'm a better person, better coach and better manager than where I was back in the Plymouth days."

It goes without saying that it's been a difficult summer for Orient following the passing of Justin Edinburgh, and while Fletcher didn't know him personally, he was full of praise for the job he did at the club.

He said: "It's been very difficult circumstances. I don't think anyone can imagine or try to imagine the dark times that the club and the people at the club have gone through. 

"I think it would be wrong of me to come in and try be the same as Justin or copy what he did because he did such a fantastic job here and although I didn't know him personally, I never heard a bad word about him and everyone spoke so highly of him.

"I'm very honoured to be able to try and continue the good work that he started and that the group of players and the staff have carried on and keep progressing forward."

In the period since Edinburgh's passing, the club has been led by Ross Embleton in an interim head coach role along with Danny Webb and Jobi McAnuff, and Fletcher was full of praise for the job they have done.

He said: "You can never prepare for the circumstances that happened so they've done a great job. It just shows what good morals they have and the strong bond that everyone has got to keep the club pushing forward in the face of adversity.

"We've met, we've had a good chat. I think the way things have panned out, Ross will take Saturday's game away at Grimsby and I'll be there in the stand to not disrupt too much in a short space of time."