Michael Skubala delighted as Lincoln extend unbeaten league run to 25 matches

Lincoln took another giant step towards the title with a 2-1 win over Leyton Orient and boss Michael Skubala had nothing but praise for the Imps after they stretched their unbeaten League One run to 25 matches.

A Jack Moylan strike, plus an own goal from Will Forrester, put the Imps firmly in the driving seat at the break, with Dom Ballard pulling a goal back for the Londoners.

“It’s an unbelievable record,” said Skubala, whose side clinched promotion on Monday. “We said this game would be tough because of the week we’ve had, but I thought we were electric.

“We made chances, looked really alive, powerful and I thought we were worthy of going in at the break two goals up.

“At the start of that second half we were looking for our third, but we dipped a little, they had a moment, but this group’s really good at getting over the line and we didn’t really give them a sniff after that.

“This could have been the one where we could have taken our foot off the gas, but this is a special group and I thought there were some top performances out there.”

Moylan became Lincoln’s top scorer with his 10th league goal of the campaign and Skubala added: “What a goal, he’s so good in and around those areas and it was a fantastic finish.”

Lincoln took the lead after 19 minutes when Tom Bayliss’ corner was only half cleared to Moylan, who swivelled to crash home a stunning effort.

City doubled their lead in the fifth minute of first-half added time when Ryan One raced down the right and crossed low only for Forrester to miscue his clearance, diverting the ball into his own net.

Orient reduced the deficit after 70 minutes when Ballard headed in Idris El Mizouni’s cross.

Leyton Orient assistant manager Paul Terry – deputising for Richie Wellens who did not travel due to a medical problem – was left to rue a sloppy opening hour for his side.

“We lost in a cruel manner, but we didn’t give ourselves a chance with the way we started the game,” he said. “We were slow, sloppy, lethargic a little bit and didn’t get to the ball enough and didn’t stop them putting balls in the box.

“We didn’t mark our men and we let them score, we let runners go for around 45 to 60 minutes.

“We changed shape and it gave us a bit of a foothold in the game as we started playing forward – there had been too many sideways passes, too many backwards passes and it allowed them to keep pressing us and we kept putting ourselves in trouble.

“We weren’t good enough in the first half and were better in the second half, credit to the lads. They gave it a go, but we told them in the dressing room afterwards, ‘don’t leave it 60 minutes to get going’.