Ling: Big Crowd Will Inspire Orient

Martin Ling takes his Orient side to Swansea to provide the first opposition at the Liberty Stadium for new Swans boss Roberto Martinez. The popular Spanish midfielder takes charge of his first home match after leading his side to a 2-1 win at Rotherham on Tuesday evening. However, Ling will be hoping to spoil the happy homecoming for Martinez and take all three points back to East London.

Speaking ahead of the game, Ling said: ‘It’s Roberto Martinez’s first home game, so there should be a big crowd and a big vocal backing for Swansea. That does seem to bring out the best of us – you only have to look at Forest and Millwall to see that – and sometimes when we’re not expected to win we go and pull off the result. I watched them play at Rotherham on Tuesday night and they put in a good performance there. They’re looking to get in and amongst the play-off pack so it’ll be a tough game but after recent results it’s one that we’re looking forward to. We go there with the confidence as high as it has been all season and I’m sure we will go there and give them a proper test.’

Having won their past two games whilst scoring seven times, Orient travel to Swansea in confident mood but Ling knows that his side will face a tough task against the play-off chasing Swans.

‘We will have to be at our maximum to win the game on Saturday and the questions will get bigger. But we’ve come back with three decent performances and seven points since people started to write us off after Brighton and Bournemouth. Looking at the bigger picture, we’ve taken 13 points from the last seven games and any team in the top half of the table would be pleased with that return. However, it’s all about what our return is going to be over the next 11 games and we will have to continue answering the questions.’

Ling has been boosted by the return to fitness of both Jabo Ibehre and Luke Guttridge and now takes a much stronger squad to South Wales.

‘Jabo and Luke coming back means there is competition for places. Only Barnard, Simpson and Thelwell are out so our squad is as strong as it has been for a while. Having Jabo on the bench means there is a forward option and obviously we’ll have a couple of strikers starting who are on fire.’