An angry Ross Embleton blasted his Leyton Orient players for not doing the “bare minimums” following their 1-0 defeat at Port Vale.

David Amoo’s second-half goal was enough to claim the points for the hosts as the O’s winless run stretched to a fifth game, with the head coach feeling his players had fallen short of the standards required in most facets of the game.

Embleton told the club website: “We started the game flat in the first half and then created one or two opportunities out of sticking to what we spoke about as to how we were going to influence the game. But I think the simple analysis of it is if we haven’t given ourselves enough of a platform to work our way into the game.

“We talk about how we’re going to create chances, how we’re going to control of the game, how we’re going to dominate the opposition, how we can hurt the opposition but it’s all irrelevant if we don’t impose ourselves on the game of football.

“We have to compete, we have to win things, we have to be strong, we have to make good decisions but for me today we looked too acceptant on too many occasions of getting nudged off the ball, not willing to do that extra yard, not enough focus on imposing yourselves on the game in terms of what you do without the ball.

“They’re the bare minimums in any game of football but certainly at this level. We have to go out and we have to compete every week and that’s not been good enough today.”

The defeat leaves the O’s 20th in the League Two table ahead of tomorrow’s home clash with Northampton Town and Embleton admitted he is concerned his side find themselves five points above the drop zone.

He said: “The position that we’ve found ourselves in is not good enough and we need to find our way into games of football and there’s too many occasions this year where the first half’s a nothing game, we get a bit over run and then we have a right go at someone in the second half.

“We’ve waited for them to score today and then we’ve decided to come out and have a bit of a charge around and try to impose ourselves on the game.

“Every now and again you’re going to pull a rabbit out of the hat, every now and again you’re going to get a fortunate opportunity to get back into a game but you can’t bank on that every week and we need to have more about us.”