Carlisle United Football Club

“We can’t give a very good team a three goal start before we start performing,” he said. “As I said on Saturday, the score line flatters us.

 

“There are a lot of things I didn’t like from the 90 minutes because very early in the game we found we weren’t doing the basics. We weren’t closing down and nullifying the threats they had anywhere near enough.

“We changed things to try to add a bit of energy but their first goal was a disappointing one to give away. It could and should have been stopped. It wasn’t, and the performance went down from the levels we deem to be acceptable from there.”

“It disappointed me as to how poor we were,” he continued. “We could go through all three goals and they were disappointing from our point of view. They were simple goals to defend. 

“With the second, we were defending two against one on the edge of our box and, inexplicably, one player dangles a leg and the other falls over. It was a great finish into the top corner, but it shouldn’t have happened. 

“We had people ball watching for the first one, and you ask whether or not the keeper could have come earlier, or should he have even stayed? These are all things we will work on. They moved us around well for the third goal but we destroyed ourselves as a back four. 

“The positive was the score line at the end but we didn’t make a fight of it for anywhere near long enough. We need to address the fact that we weren’t on our game until we went three goals down.”

And the manager revealed that he is set to watch a player in action on Tuesday as he continues the search for the right type of character to add to the squad.

“We’re looking at a wide player for the left hand side to give us more natural balance and width,” he told us. “I’ll be going to look at a game tomorrow to see the lad play and to see if he is what we need. 

“We’re also still looking for a midfield player to join us on loan. That will be governed largely on the recovery rate of Gary Dicker and how quickly we can get him up to match speed. We’re in the process of trying to arrange some bounce games to help him with that.”

On keeper Raphael Spiegel, signed ahead of the visit of Wycombe at the weekend, he said: “He’s a young lad who has good stature and a good future. Saturday will have been a huge learning curve for him but he’s one who needs to find a personality and profile within the game he can call his own.

“We were in conversation with a keeper who had vast league experience at the back end of last week. He’s just been paid up by a football club and, at 32 or 33 years of age, he has a good standing in the game. We had him up here training for two or three days but he made a decision not to join us on Thursday. 

“We thought we were quite a way down the line with the negotiations but I got a call to tell me he’d had a change of heart. Obviously the ideal situation would be to get a keeper who has had experience, and who has faced a relegation battle, but we felt we had a good plan B with Raphael. The last thing I said to him before he went out on Saturday was for him to make his decisions and enjoy it. I think that’s exactly what he’ll do.”

And on the process of getting the lads ready for another tough away game this coming weekend, he said: “First and foremost we get back on the grass. We need to create a good atmosphere and environment again. 

“We’ve lost a game of football, but we move on. There will be time for reflection this afternoon and we’ll be watching excerpts from the match DVD. We’ll look at the things we’re not happy with and where I think different options could have been taken. 

“It’s a learning tool rather than something we use to bang people over the head. We’ll get the feedback from the players, to add to that, so they can determine where they feel they can make improvements as well.

“The thing is that training last week was absolutely fantastic. It was probably the best week of training we’ve had. We had the peaks you’re looking for in individual and collective training sessions, and you could see we have a lot of players who are striving to improve themselves. That’s very pleasing. 

“Overall, if we look at the last run of games, we’ve just played against the best in the division and we’ve seen there’s nothing for us to be scared of. We have to be respectful, but the difference is that they are being more consistent at the things we need to be doing. Again, that’s something we will continue to work at until we start to get the results in performance and games we’re looking for.”