Full time: Orient 6 Toon 1

Chris Hughton commented:

"It was disappointing and embarrassing. It had been a very good pre-season until then. This is a major disappointment in the pre-season programme but it’s not the be-all and end-all.

"It certainly wasn’t a 6-1 performance but I don’t want to take anything away from Leyton Orient. When you concede six goals they’re not all going to be great goals but there were a couple of smashing goals.

“With the way the pre-season had been going we would have expected to win and we didn’t.

“We start again on Monday and I’m absolutely sure the lads will put in a good training session and be in a good position to go into a tough game on Wednesday.

“Over a pre-season you know there will be highs and lows. I just thought we didn’t have as much in our legs as on other occasions. What you can’t do is beat ourselves up over one result. It’s a major blip in what’s been a good pre-season so far.

“I made a decision that because of the major disappointment of the result everything that was said should be through myself.

"It's a strong possibility I could lead Newcastle out for the first game. My role is increasing. It will continue to do so. It will build to that first game. My thinking has been to prepare the group of lads as well as I can until someone comes in and takes over the role.

"The fact that hasn't happened means it starts to change. I have enjoyed my time at the club. I feel the passion the fans have for the club and it's always a very proud moment for me to be in charge of this group of lads.

"I am certainly prepared to be in charge of this team for whatever period the club want me to be. But I am not in the position where I can fight to keep players here. We will be the scalp this season. The players are aware of that. Now they have to combat that and be good enough to come back again."

He later added:

"Pre-season or not, that wasn't acceptable and it was hard to take. It was an embarrassing performance and result and the lads were hurting after the game.

"We can only apologise to the fans who have backed us tremendously during pre-season. The situation off the field is well documented but the supporters have never turned on the players and have been magnificent.

"We now have to re-group on Monday and come out against Leeds United on Wednesday and put on a show."

Orient boss Geraint Williams said:

"A clean sheet would have been nice. But all joking aside it was one of those freak results.

"We put everything in when we went forward and our goalkeeper made a couple of good saves, so it could have been a different scoreline.

"But we'll take a 6-1 win - we showed good attacking intent, putting the ball away, and we defended well at times too.

"The first thing we said after the game was that we can't get carried away by this.

"We got beaten at Ebbsfleet on Tuesday and we weren't on the floor then because there were a lot of good things to come out of the performance.

"Things have gone our way today - and we won't be getting carried away - but it was nice to put that on for our fans."

"We have worked on our attacking play and I'm a manager who likes his teams to score goals.

"You can only do that from a solid base at the back - so you have to get both elements right.

"We want to go forward and score goals but we also have to defend as a team to keep clean sheets."

Niall MacKenzie