Leyton Orient boss Russell Slade believes the Johnstone's Paint Trophy could be a useful competition for his enhanced squad this season.

Orient are one of the favourites for the JPT and the club look capable of contending for the competition with a strong enough squad which allowed them to have summer signings Jobi McAnuff and Darius Henderson on the bench in their win at Peterborough United on Tuesday.

Slade said: “The competition could be useful for the squad. We’ve had a couple of little gos at it where we got to the southern final. It’s a great carrot getting to Wembley in any cup final.

“We’ll see what happens, what the draw brings and the situation and circumstances are at the time because obviously the league will remain the priority.”

The O’s are in the rare position of not having a match this weekend due to the Preston North End home game being postponed because of the visitors’ international call-ups. The Orient boss admits the players will have to adopt different training schedules to suit their level of fitness after a hectic opening month of the season.

Slade, whose side’s next game is against Colchester United at Brisbane Road a week on Saturday, said: “It’s a good question. We need a bit of a game plan for that and we’re going to put that together because some of the players have played an awful lot of football and maybe it’s a time for them to down load a bit before we load them up again.

“Then there are others that need loading up so there will be programs for one which will be different to another.

“It’s a little bit complicated really but we have enough staff and we’ll get through it and make sure they get a suitable amount of work,” the O’s boss added.