Leyton Orient’s Martin Ling is targeting a top seven finish next season, as the O’s bid to secure a return to the Football League at the second attempt.

Orient finished last campaign strongly under Justin Edinburgh, who has spoken repeatedly of his desire to build a squad which is capable of earning promotion next season.

The O’s made their first signing of the summer transfer window last week when former Stevenage midfielder Dale Gorman signed a two-year-contract at the Breyer Group Stadium and Orient are also keen to bring in a striker as well.

After a strong end to the campaign under Edinburgh, Ling is now hopeful that the O’s will be able to challenge at the top end of the National League next season.

He said: “We’ve spoken about it and I think I would be disappointed if we are not top seven next year and I think Justin has said as much. If you start to make plans to be anything but trying to get out of the league then we shouldn’t be in it. But I think we’ve got to be looking at that top seven next year.”

It proved to be a challenging first year for Ling as the club’s director of football, having practically had to build a squad from scratch after Nigel Travis’ takeover last June.

After a bright start to the season, Orient’s form dipped dramatically and after 11 league games without a win, Steve Davis was sacked with the O’s sitting in 19th place in the table.

Former Northampton Town boss Edinburgh was appointed as Davis’ successor as head-coach at the end of November and managed to steady the ship at Brisbane Road, leading Orient to a 13th place finish in the National League, with the O’s losing just two of their last eight games.

Ling has been pleased with the 48-year-old’s job so far and despite all the upheaval, described last season as a ‘satisfactory’ campaign for the club.

“For me, sitting here on the 22nd June when I walked in with very little players and very little staff and an awful lot to do, if someone had said to me we’ll give you 13th I think I would have taken it to be totally honest at the start,” Ling said.

“Then we had the period of eight games where we did really well and was up in second place and all of us were thinking it might not be as harder as we thought it was going to be. Then we had 15 games without a win, a change of manager and since Justin has come in, we were 20th when he came in to the building and we ended up in 13th, so he did what we asked him to do.

“The bigger thing for us is that he averaged 1.62 points per game which would have given us about 74/75 points at the end of the season, which would have been play off stats. So Justin had play off form while he was here.

“Overall, I would say it was a satisfactory season. But if we finish 13th next year, I wouldn’t see that as a satisfactory season as we would have had a little time to change things around.”

Perhaps one of the main reasons for Orient’s transitional campaign was the club’s unsettling pre-season, which saw a number of new signings arrive in a short space of time, with just nine players on the books when Ling walked through the door.

There will be no such repeat this summer and Ling described last year’s pre-season as ‘awkward’ when reflecting on his first few months at the club after the takeover.

He said: “Pre-season was a non-event to be honest with you. When I say non-event, what I mean by that is that the first few days there was no manager and from then onwards, it was integrating one or two players.

“There was never a week in the pre-season programme where what you started the week with was what you ended the week with. There was always players coming in and it was a very awkward pre-season because of that and staff getting to know each other. It was hectic.

“There were things going on all the time because we just got our hands on the club and it was a real hectic time especially for myself, but also for the manager and coaching staff because of the turnover of players that were coming in on a day by day basis. It was awkward.”