Interim head coach Ross Embleton has provided an update on Leyton Orient trio Dean Brill, Jobi McAnuff and Conor Wilkinson.

Brill has been absent from all of the pre-season matches so far, as has McAnuff as he continues in his interim player-coach role following the reshuffle of the management team. Wilkinson, meanwhile, suffered a knock to the ankle in last week’s win against AFC Rushden & Diamonds.

On Brill’s absence, Embleton told the club website after Saturday’s win over Dartford: “It’s been frustrating for him as it has been with one or two of the lads. Dean, last year and since Justin’s time at the club, played a huge amount of football, going from playing none. It was amazing, the amount of games that he put together, also remembering that last pre-season he was pretty much the only goalkeeper that played because of injuries to Sarge [Sam Sergeant] and Charlie Grainger.

“I think at the back end of the season it caught up with him and he was suffering from a shoulder problem. We came back and I didn’t want to play him in the Harlow game to begin with to protect his shoulder because of the pitch. He’s done a bit of training and he’s suffered some stiffness in his back.

“I’ve had some good conversations with the medical team over the last couple of days and they’re confident and hopeful that he’s going to get some minutes on Tuesday night at Bishop’s Stortford and hopefully that gives Dean a chance to build himself up with not long to go until the season starts.”

On McAnuff’s absence, Embleton made it clear that the midfielder hadn’t stopped playing to focus purely on coaching.

He said: “He hasn’t stopped playing. He hasn’t become a coach. He’s desperate to get that red training kit back on and stand away from Webby [Danny Webb] and I. It’s a recurrence and a carry on from the back end of last season when we were managing Jobi through games.

“The biggest thing that we all looked forward to this summer was to give him a rest, get him off his feet and to give him the opportunity to recover from the season that he had. We only had four and a half weeks off because of the trophy final and he hasn’t come back as close to fitness as we first hoped.

“It’s a patience game. He’s building up every day, improving every couple of days and we hope that he can be pain free within the next week or two to start training and then we’ll see how soon it’s going to be before we see him in the team again.”

Finally, Embleton explained why new signing Wilkinson was not in the side against Dartford, but insisted it was not serious and he should be back in action for the next match.

He said: “It was a bit rough and tumble away to Rushden and Diamonds on Thursday night and there was a number of them that got late whacks and knocks. Conor’s was just a quite severe knock to the ankle that he picked up. He managed to carry on but yesterday it was very swollen.

“He’s come in today better already and he says it feels a lot easier. He can get his shoe on now. He was moving a lot easier so we hope that he’ll be close to playing on Tuesday.”

He continued: “Jordan Maguire-Drew, dead leg as well, and Dale Gorman has been suffering from a bit of tightness in his quad so we decided to take him away from today.”

Orient’s next friendly sees them travel to Bishop’s Stortford tomorrow night, with kick off at 7.45pm.