O’s lose appeal over midfielder’s red card

Orient midfielder Matt Spring will miss Saturday’s match against his former club Charlton Athletic.

Spring was sent off after just 14 minutes during last weekend’s disastrous 5-1 home defeat by Yeovil Town.

The O’s launched a challenge to referee Geoff Eltringam’s decision, but the FA have rejected Orient’s appeal.

The veteran midfielder will also miss the home games against Plymouth Argyle and Southampton, as O’s look to relaunch their bid to gate-crash the play-offs.

Despite taking just one point from their last three games, O’s remain in seventh place, five points behind Bournemouth, with a game in hand.

Orient boss Russell Slade, dismissed last weekend’s defeat by Yeovil as a freak result as his side lost at home for the first time since September and is hoping they can bounce back at Charlton on Saturday.

“We will have had a week without a game, so let’s hope that does the trick,” said Slade, who should have both Charlie Daniels and skipper Stephen Dawson available after injury.

“It’s going to be a tough game at Charlton, but we have worked really hard to get into the position we’re in. It was a freak result against Yeovil.”

However, Slade admitted his side were far from their best against Yeovil and admitted: “There are lessons to learn. We will go through it and see where we can improve, but we really didn’t see that result coming.

“It was an absolute disaster, there is no point saying anything else. Nothing went right. But I don’t want to paper over some of our defending, which I didn’t think was up to our normal standards. We gave ourselves a mountain to climb.”

Regarding Spring’s dismissal and the controversial penalty, Slade added: “Those two decisions were absolutely key. It’s unbelievable really.

“I have spoken to Matt and he insists it was not a red and all Dawson has done was protect his face. I think it was the harshest penalty in the world.”