Dom Ballard scored a hat-trick to give the O’s a comfortable victory.

Wellens said: “From the first whistle our intensity in the game was good. I think it was a fully-deserved three points, probably against the in-form team in the league.

“I thought the application, effort, work-rate and quality was excellent.

“What I’m really pleased about is that we keep taking punches. I like this group. We got rid of a few that we didn’t like. This is not personal.

“We needed this window to get a few players in. The new players were class today. Hopefully we can keep people fit and injury free. I like this group and I want to keep them tighter. Let’s hope we can build on this with this group.”

Wellens was full of praise for skipper Theo Archibald, adding: “I always think captains are a reflection of your team. He deserves everything he gets. I can’t speak highly enough of him.”

Reading boss Leam Richardson was disappointed to see his side’s good run come to an end but felt Orient deserved their win.

“I thought they out-ran and out-thought us,” he said. “These are fundamentals of football. That is why we went on the run we did. Because we started on a really good foundation. But we never saw that today or got going.

“You’ve got to respect the opposition and respect ourselves more. We can’t just come up to stadiums and expect to win because we are just a good footballing team. We have to win our duels, win our races, our headers.

“We must now get on the training ground and work hard. We can start another run. Tomorrow morning we will digest it because we have set another level. We shouldn’t let our levels drop because we have set our standards very high.”

Orient climb to 16th in League One, three points off the relegation zone while Reading are 11th, four points of the off a play-off place.