Carlisle United Football Club

“Consistency is one of the things we're looking for,” he agreed. “Since I got to the club we’ve won eight and lost nine, so we are capable of winning games. 

“We aren't winning them as frequently as I'd like and we need to go on a run now. Hopefully that will start with back to back away victories. That can have a calming influence on the changing room and it helps to bring the belief and confidence you want your players to go out and play with.” 

“When you look at the table, the teams above us are all in touching distance if we can get a couple of wins,” he added. “If the teams around get a couple of poor results they will start to experience the things we’ve been dealing with all season. 

“You get the nervousness and pressure on results, along with the anxiety of supporters and directors, and it brings a fear factor into football clubs. We’ve been dealing with it since I walked in the building and we're getting stronger as a group, because we fully understand the situation we're in. Other clubs can get caught up in that at the wrong time of the season, when they're running out of games, and it can cause panic.” 

“The first target I've got at the moment is to get those back to back away wins,” he commented. “That’s achievable because I honestly believe we can go to Bury and cause them problems. 

“There will be an anxiety there because the expectations at the start of the season were very high. They’re in tenth position but would have wanted to be in the top three, or at least the play offs. They’re one of the clubs where if we have a decent run in the next seven or eight games we could be even closer to them. 

“It's a lot easier to be looking up than looking down. Teams above us are now getting back in touching distance and a few good results will put us into that pack. Make no mistake about it, we have enough firepower to cause Bury problems on the day. If they disregard us, we’ll cause them problems.” 

“We haven't heard anything from Bury about their pitch yet, but we know they’ll be doing everything they can to get the game on,” he said. “Their pitch being in the condition it's in will probably suit an away performance more than a home one. 

“When I was at a Notts County we went on a run of 22 away games unbeaten, but we couldn't get that level of consistency at home because of the pitch. Results didn't go our way, and the fans got nervous because we weren't playing the way we were away from home. 

“We know how we're playing at the moment so the pitch at Bury will do us no harm at all. If you look at their results at the start of the season, when they had a carpet to play on, you can see they are now having to grind results out on a bobbly pitch.  

“They set out and it was a new era. They were playing three at the back with rotation all over the pitch. They were playing with confidence and trying to get the ball forward with quality. It’ll be up to us to play to the conditions and nullify their threats as much as possible.”

“Dolly's corner has been quiet this week,” he said. “We've still got the long term injuries to Stephen Elliott and Gary Dicker. Danny Kearns is returning to football training two days a week and we're hoping that can be progressed into full time training next week. Billy Paynter has been off with an illness and he will be checked by a doctor today [Thursday].”