Russell Slade will face his former club Yeovil Town twice next month after being drawn against them in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy southern area semi-finals.

Orient booked their place in the next round of the competition after a 3-0 win at Northampton Town last week and their reward is a home clash with the Glovers on Tuesday, January 8 at 7pm. 

It means the O's will take on Yeovil twice in the space of a week, with a trip to Somerset scheduled for New Year’s Day.

Slade, who was in charge of Yeovil between 2006 and 2009, said: “I suppose it had to be [former club Yeovil], didn’t it? The nice thing is we’ve got them at home, which is good, and I think we’ll end up playing them twice in almost a week so we’ve got that to look forward to in January.

“That’s on the backburner now anyway because we’ve got the rest of December to get through and then we’ll look forward to the cup competitions when they come along.”

Orient are only two rounds away from a trip to Wembley in the Football League Trophy and with their current form and League One status there is every reason to believe they can get there.

Defender Scott Cuthbert made a welcome return to the first team in the win over Northampton and the Scot has set his sights on helping Orient return to the famous stadium for the first time since their Division Three play-off final defeat in 1999.

The former Celtic player said: “Definitely, it is an incentive for us to get to Wembley.

“Some of the boys haven’t played at Wembley, so it would be a great achievement for the club if we could.

“We know it’s tough as there are a lot of tough teams left in the competition. We will be giving it our all to get to Wembley, that’s for sure.”