League One is absolutely bonkers - Wellens

Richie Wellens' Leyton Orient side have lost all four of their League One games so far

League One is "absolutely bonkers" with up to 16 teams vying for the top six places, says Leyton Orient boss Richie Wellens.

The O's are bottom of the early table with no points from their first four games, while newly-promoted Wrexham lead the way with 13 points from five.

Wellens described the Welsh club's journey of back-to-back promotions from the National League as "brilliant" and predicted big-spending Birmingham City would win the league easily, in a revealing interview on 72+, on the Football Daily podcast.

As well as Blues and Wrexham, Orient are competing with clubs including Charlton Athletic, Bolton Wanderers, Wigan Athletic and Reading, all of whom have been in the Premier League in the last two decades.

"You are talking about 15 or 16 teams who have a really big budget and are paying a lot of wages, and within the club are believing they can make a play-off push this year, it's absolute madness," he said.

The O's began the season with a 2-1 loss at home to Bolton before a 1-0 defeat at The Valley against Charlton.

A 2-1 home loss to Blues followed before a 3-0 defeat away at Shrewsbury Town, which Wellens described as the worst performance he had seen from his team in two-and-a-half years at the club.

"It was the first time we were expected to win as favourites and our mentality was wrong," he said. "For me to sugar coat that and brush that under the carpet would be irresponsible of me."

'Birmingham will win league very, very easily'

Jay Stansfield moved to Birmingham City in a League One record deal believed to be worth more than £10m

Orient are also through to the third round of the Carabao Cup, having knocked out Millwall, and lost key players in the summer, including top scorers Ruel Sotiriou and Shaq Forde, both to Bristol Rovers.

"I'm not going to beat around the bush and bore people because, ultimately, everyone looks at results and we are bottom of the league," he said.

"We're doing a lot of good things, three of the four performances have been good against teams who are going to be in and around the top six.

"We've made catastrophic mistakes where it's literally given the opposition a goal on a plate."

Birmingham broke the League One transfer record with the signing of Jay Stansfield from Fulham in a deal believed to be worth £10m plus bonuses, making 17 signings in total during the summer window.

They are unbeaten after four games and are fourth in the table, and Wellens believes they should be a "yo-yo" club between the Premier League and the Championship, rather than in the third tier.

"Birmingham will win this league very, very easily in my opinion," he said.

'People are jealous but Wrexham's story is brilliant'

On the back of two consecutive promotions, Wrexham have won four of their first five games sending them top of League One.

They visit Birmingham on Monday.

"I don't think they're ever going to go under the radar because of the profile of the club and the people involved," Wellens added.

"Their recruitment has been fantastic. A lot of people are jealous of the Wrexham story but I think it's brilliant.

"I finished my career as a player at Macclesfield and we played Wrexham away in one of my last ever appearances and it was dead.

"There was no one there, it was echoing, it was cold.

"I have just watched some of the clips from [recent games] and the ground has been bouncing."