Ross Embleton says Leyton Orient are fully aware of Braintree Town's qualities and expects the struggling Essex side to raise their game when the O’s visit Cressing Road this evening.

It has proven to be a tough start to life in the National League for Brad Quinton’s men, who gained promotion from the National League South after beating Hampton and Richmond Borough in the Play Offs last season, with the Iron currently rooted in the bottom four.

Braintree have picked up just six points from their opening 12 games, however, they did beat high flying Gateshead away from home two weeks ago and also picked up a point at Barnet in the opening weeks of the campaign.

For O’s fans, there will be two familiar faces in the Iron’s squad in the shape of Michael Clark and Henry Ochieng who were released by the East London side having come through the ranks at Brisbane Road.

Orient, meanwhile, are currently sitting pretty at the top of the table and enter this evening’s match full of confidence having comfortably dispatched early promotion rivals Harrogate Town at the weekend.

The O’s have enjoyed an unbeaten start to the campaign under Justin Edinburgh and have shown plenty of character to score late equalisers or grind out narrow wins on the road so far.

However, Braintree made third place Wrexham work hard for a 1-0 win at Cressing Road earlier this month and assistant coach Embleton is expecting a tough test when the O’s head to Essex this evening.

He said: “The thing we’ve learnt since we’ve been in this league is that when we analyse the opposition, sometimes when we come up against them it’s a little different as it’s Leyton Orient, especially when teams come here. We understand teams want to play against us and roll their sleeves up and have a go.

“We have to continuously find ways to overcome that and fortunately, we’ve done that so far this season. We have to put teams away that we think we deserve to go and get results to and we’ve got to continue to do that.”