Justin Edinburgh has been pleased with the way that Leyton Orient’s players have reported back to pre-season, as the O’s gear up to play their first friendly this weekend.

Orient will travel to Harlow Town on Saturday, with kick-off now set to take place at 11:30am rather than 3pm, due to England’s progression to the quarter finals of the World Cup.

Harlow are managed by Danny Chapman who guided the Hawks to a 21st place finish in the Bostik Premier League in 2017/18, with Christian Scales, who was released by the O’s last week, enjoying time on loan with the club last campaign.

Orient have been back in training for the last week as they start to prepare for a promotion challenge this campaign and head coach Edinburgh is looking forward to the club’s first friendly on Saturday.

Speaking to the Guardian Series earlier this week, he said: “I think the players look forward to playing. I think for them it’s the start of coming out the back end of a very tough week.

“I think we will take each individual pre-season game and look to get different results from each one in terms of not the score-line but what we are trying to implement in terms of style of play.

“Every pre-season game we play will be tough. We’ve picked them for that reason. We look forward to it. The weather will play a part but the first few are more focused on a fitness key really and then we’ll look to implement the style of play and other things as we go along.

“I’ve been really pleased with the condition of the players and the way they’ve reported back for pre-season. They were all given their own individual programmes for the off-season. They were all different specifics for each individual.

“The results from the testing we did last week were very good. It’s good to get straight to work and we’ve had a very productive first three or four days. I’m pleased and excited to be back amongst it and am looking forward to the forthcoming season.”

Following Saturday’s game, the O’s will then jet off to Portugal for a weeklong warm weather training camp which will culminate with a friendly against Benfica B in Albufeira.

Upon returning, trips to East Thurrock United, Concord Rangers and St Albans City are all lined up, before Orient round off their pre-season schedule with a friendly against League One side Southend United at the Breyer Group Stadium on Saturday, July 28.

The National League season will then kick off the following weekend on Saturday, August 4.

Edinburgh, though, is looking forward to putting the players through their paces out in Portugal and praised the club’s owners for allowing him to take the squad to the Algarve for a warm weather training camp.

He said: “First and foremost, credit to the board for allowing us to go there. It’s not cheap but after speaking to them, I think they appreciate what it can bring. It gives us seven days with the players and unlimited access to them. We are fully in control of everything they do.

“We’ve only got a couple of new players to integrate but one or two haven’t been around the first team environment in terms of competitiveness over the last season. It allows us to live, work and socialise together and do everything together in a real intense week.

“Portugal has fantastic facilities and we couldn’t have asked for anything more. We finish it with another game which will be different to what we’re envisaged here. It’s going to be against a team who are very technical based and it will be a different challenge for us.

“That week will be one where we can really work the players ever so hard and implement a lot of other strategies and our game plan going forward for the forthcoming season.”