Ross Embleton praised his “outstanding” Leyton Orient side as his interim spell in charge of the club came to an end with a thumping 4-0 win away at Grimsby Town.

Dan Happe, Josh Coulson, James Alabi and Josh Wright got on the scoresheet for the O’s to extend their unbeaten run to four games, giving new boss Carl Fletcher something positive to work with as he comes into the side.

Speaking to the club website after the game, Embleton said: “We said three or four games ago about building and trying to get some momentum so that when the change was made permanent, the new manager would be able to come into a team that was confident and ready to look forwards.

“The boys have done that. They’ve been outstanding in the last couple of weeks and I felt like that result today was potentially one that has been coming for a while so I’m delighted for everybody and what it does now is it gives h the new manager a real opportunity for us to build and look onwards.”

Grimsby weren’t without chances in the game and on another day they could have quite easily breached the Orient defence. However, goalkeeper Dean Brill was in fine form, and two saves in particular caught Embleton’s eye and he reserved praise for the stopper’s overall performance.

He said: “He made two real good saves. I thought his kicking was good, I thought he gave us a real good opportunity to be solid at the back. I felt that once we got that third goal and were comfortable, a real key thing for me was that we didn’t start going gung-ho, trying to attack and committing too many players.

“We made sure that we did our job properly to keep the clean sheet so I’m delighted for Dean and the whole team but the back four as well.”

Another key performance for the boss was that of young defender Happe, who scored his first League Two goal of the season, his second in all competitions, as well as putting in an assured display at the back.

Embleton said: “I thought he was outstanding today. He can go wherever he wants if he really continues to keep applying himself. To go and perform in the manner that he did today physically against a really good striker and target man, but I think the way he imposed himself on the ball as well shows that next level ability to be able to move the ball and start attacks for us as well as stopping them.”

The win sees Embleton’s interim spell come to an end, with new head coach Fletcher to lead the team for their away trip to Plymouth Argyle on Tuesday night and beyond, and Embleton is excited to start working with the new boss.

He said: “I’m excited. I haven’t spent a huge amount of time with him but I met him last weekend with a view to him being announced as the new manager and we’ve spent some time on the phone at the latter end of this week.

“It’s great that he’s been able to travel today because we’ve been able to spend a lot of time on the coach and at the hotel talking about his ideas and how he wants to work, what he sees me doing and how he sees me contributing to that.

“I think I’ve said all along that it’s a role that excites me and it’s an opportunity to go back to doing that job that and hopefully I can give him all the support that he needs to make him a success at this club.”