Leyton Orient boss Ross Embleton saluted match-winner Danny Johnson after his late strike secured a 1-0 opening-day success at Oldham.

Johnson pounced in the 89th minute to hand the O’s maximum points.

He has now scored in each of the O’s opening three competitive games so far this term.

After Johnson had latched on to Jamie Turley’s knock down before slotting home, Embleton said: “Of course it’s always nice to get out of the traps early, so to speak.

“It’s always pleasing to get the season off to a winning start, especially at a really tough place like this.

“Oldham played really well last week when they beat Carlisle convincingly.

“That was a real Danny Johnson-type finish, though.

“He took it really well, he’s enjoying a great start to the season.

“Not all his goals are worldies, but ones like that one today are his bread and butter.

“Those kind of knock downs are exactly what he thrives on.

“When a ball like that drops to someone like Danny, you know there’s a good chance he’ll finish, and that was a timely one.

“He’s a great asset to our club. He doesn’t just create opportunities for himself, he’s aware of who’s around him and knows where the goal is.

“Overall it was a bit of a disappointing performance from the team today, but it’s great when you come away with a result like that.”

The O’s shaded a dull opening half, with Lee Angol firing over early on after he had robbed Oldham’s Ben Garrity.

Defender Dan Happe fired narrowly over the top, though both sides created a few more openings in the second period.

Oldham boss Harry Kewell was not impressed as his side failed to build on an impressive Carabao Cup win against Carlisle seven days earlier.

The Australian said: “That wasn’t great.

“Too many times we didn’t make the right decisions at the right time.

“The final delivery just wasn’t there, too often.

“No disrespect to Leyton Orient, but they’ve come here and done a job on us.

“It was a good, competitive game, particularly in the second half, but again too often we didn’t get the necessary quality into the final third of the pitch enough.

“From minute one the performance was a little slow, a bit sluggish, and even at times it was lazy.

“Leyton Orient weren’t really hurting us, but they’ve gone back with maximum points now and that’s a big disappointment.

“We got ourselves into some good and promising positions, but we didn’t make the most of them.

“We have to pick ourselves up for a very important cup game at Morecambe during the week now.

“We can’t go there with the attitude that we can just be handed the victory and a big tie in the next round.

“We’ve got to get our heads down on Monday now and work really hard.”