Leyton Orient boss Alberto Cavasin has tough midfield choices to make for Saturday’s home clash against Luton Town.

Liam Kelly is likely to miss the match with a muscular injury after he came off after five minutes in their 1-0 loss to Portsmouth last weekend as set pieces once again proved to be O’s downfall.

Robbie Weir is still serving his three-match ban and Nigel Atangana and Harry Cornick are still on the sidelines due to injury.

The Italian said: “By the time the Luton game comes around we will have had a whole week to work on set pieces in training.

“We need to be a more compact team so we are able to ready our own manoeuvres, so we have to be more structured to ensure we play good football.

“We will have to make up the midfield for Saturday.

“Atangana is close to a full recovery but he has not been training properly for the last 15 days.

“So it is likely he may need a bit more time to recover.

“Cornick does not have an easy recovery and will not be available against Luton.”

Cavasin has become the eighth man in charge since owner Francesco Becchetti took over in 2014 but the former Lecce boss believes time is needed to steady the ship.

“You can achieve results without projecting the style of football you want them to play,” he said.

“I have happened to had a lot of good luck and good fortune with other teams I have managed, as you say in Italy, they have stolen a result at the end of the match.

“Winning helps confidence, but the development and getting better all comes together by working hard.”

Pompey’s Christian Burgess scored the only goal of the game as he headed in at the back post from a corner in the second half.

There was a penalty appeal for Orient in the first after Yvan Erichot was bundled over in the box but it was waved away.

The 60-year-old also made an unusual substitution as Paul McCallum made way for Alan Dunne.

“There is a sadness of losing a good match as I thought we played well in the first half, but we have to recognise the fact we lost against a good team,” said Cavasin.

“Penalty decisions is something I have never commented on in my career. You get what the referee gives you and I do not want to talk about it.

“Not having Kelly anymore we had to decide who to put in the midfield as we did not have the same kind of player with the same characteristics as Kelly had, so we had to change the module.

“And in the last 20 minutes of the second half we were not as compact as we wanted to be so on that occasion we had to make substitutions to try and equalise.”

The Hatters visit Brisbane Road on Saturday with a 3pm kick-off.