Leyton Orient assistant coach Danny Senda paid tribute to skipper Jobi McAnuff for his role in a 2-0 victory over Southend which saw the O’s get back to winning ways.

Orient had lost four of their previous five league matches but were never extended to claim the points against a Southend side who, having shown good recent form, are now once again propping up the Football League.

The 39-year-old McAnuff played a key part in the victory, opening the scoring with a 53rd-minute free-kick from the edge of the box and later picking out striker Conor Wilkinson, who chipped the ball over the advancing keeper to record his 10th goal of the campaign and seal the points.

“He is the heartbeat of our team, he delivers in the big moments for us as a team,” Senda said of McAnuff.

Senda took charge of the O’s in the absence of head coach Ross Embleton who was self-isolating after a family member tested positive for coronavirus.

“It’s a wonderful way to end 2020,” Senda continued. “It’s no secret we all recognised before the game that we needed to put a performance together like we did today.

“The fact we have been able to do that today knowing how special this game is for the fans, I really do hope they can see where we are trying to take this group of players.

“We spoke about consistency after the game on Boxing Day and we felt from the first minute to the last minute tonight, we delivered that.

“We put a lot of responsibility on their shoulders tonight in the midfield to win the battle and they achieved that.

“It was a derby game and sometimes you need to step back from technical tactics and go back to basics and keep running and the players did that.”

Southend manager Mark Molesley had no complaints about the result which brought an end to his side’s unbeaten five-match run.

The reverse, combined with Stevenage beating Cambridge earlier in the evening, also saw The Blues slip back into bottom place in League Two.

“It was frustrating from the standards that we set ourselves and we haven’t quite reached them today,” he said.

“We’ve come up a bit short, we were a little bit submissive and we didn’t quite get our distances right. Sometimes you are not always at your best and at 0-0, we were well in the game and the longer the game went on, the more I felt we would get into our stride.

“But unfortunately, we gave a free-kick away on the edge of the area and they scored. But you have to give credit to them (Orient) because they attacked really well.

“The disappointing thing from our point of view was giving away the free-kick and we need to be better but it was a great free-kick.

“We never really got going tonight.”