Wellens: I’m absolutely buzzing for Leyton Orient supporters

A 2-0 defeat at Gillingham, after an early red card for Omar Beckles and delay due to floodlight failure at Priestfield Stadium, ended their 13-match unbeaten run, but a loss for Bradford at Wellens former club Swindon meant O’s could not be caught in the race for the top three.

And Wellens is now hoping the team can go up as champions as they return to Brisbane Road to host Crewe on Saturday.

“Great scenes at the end, fantastic. Absolutely buzzing for the supporters that made the trip, the supporters at home,” he told the club website.

“Hopefully on Saturday we’ll make a real special day of it. But I apologise to our supporters – Leyton Orient never make it easy, even the lights tried to fail us.

“Whoever is messing about with that generator in Gillingham, they didn’t make it easy for us. But fantastic scenes at the end.

“I’m gutted we lost the game because I thought we were absolutely superb but to get it done was the main aim, to get promoted, we’ve achieved that now.

“But we’ve still got a big job and Saturday I want every single supporter to bring a red and white scarf. We’ve got four games to go and these occasions don’t happen very often, so lets make these next three weeks really memorable, really special. 

“Lets make memories that can last a lifetime and try and get the ultimate goal which is the league title.”

Beckles was given his marching orders for a professional foul on George Lapslie after just 13 minutes, with Alex MacDonald’s free-kick opening the scoring.

And Gillingham doubled their lead from the penalty spot through Cheye Alexander, after Idris El Mizouni was adjudged to have handled in the box, before the lights went out.

“I can’t explain how bad the referee was tonight,” added Wellens.

“Is it a sending-off? Maybe. But I do think he’s headed it too far and I think Vigouroux has got it in his hands before he’s taken another two steps.

“I think it was a little bit harsh, we should deal with it against a team that plays long. It was like he wanted to make it about him tonight.

“The fact we got a result elsewhere, I’m pleased it was Swindon. Covid cruelly took the chance for us to win the league properly there, so maybe it’s fate that Swindon get the result for me to get automatic promotion.

“I want to win the league now.”

After power was restored, the two teams returned to play out the last 10 minutes of the match, but O’s had little appetite for it by that stage with promotion confirmed.

And Wellens now wants to ensure the final three weeks of the season are special and they can make lifelong memories.

“It’s really strange. When you’re off for 15 minutes, you’d give a proper warm-up to the players but me and Neil [Harris] spoke and I said we’re happy you’ve won the game, we don’t want any injuries, we’ve got four big games coming up,” he said.

“It was very unlikely we were going to get anything from the game, so you just manage the last 10 minutes, and obviously we wanted to get out of here.

“It meant our supporters had to stay a lot later than was planned but I hate losing, especially when we’ve played so well, but we just have to take our medicine, move onto Saturday now and make Brisbane a fortress.

“Lets make these next three weeks special that we can always call back on our memories, what a special time it was.”