Carlisle legend Hugh McIlmoyle spoke to Rob this evening about the 3-1 reverse at the weekend:

"Dreadful - I don't know where to start. I felt quite depressed and I was crying in my drink last night! Nobody was up to scratch on Saturday. We had a good start when we scored early on - and I like to get an early goal - but it didn't settle us down at all.

I'm sure that Paul doesn't tell them to hit long balls - these percentage balls - it shows a lack of confidence. Rovers played to feet whereas we just hoofed it long. It might be better for us to go one down early on and see what happens. Certainly we need to pull our socks up - we're not firing on all cylinders (or very many cylinders for that matter!).

I don't know what Paul Simpson can do. It seems to be a confidence thing - three losses on the trot loses confidence. We didn't compete at all. We need more class - we've got people who will give 100% but we need just that bit more class. I'll be glad when Chris Lumsdon gets back to last season's form as he has that bit of extra class.

We treated the ball like a hot potato on Saturday - no-one wanted to keep it. The new lad, O'Brien, looked the part early on but he is inexperienced. With experience he would look for the ball when he wasn't being given it. When he had the ball he was very creative. We must remember though that he has come here to gain some experience.

Bristol Rovers were poor - I'll accept it when we lose to a good side but losing to poor teams like them is not acceptable. The first two goals were poor goals to give away and the third goal was caused by making bad decisions. Their keeper flapped at the numerous corners we had - we just needed someone on the back post. I think we missed Brendan McGill for that.

At half time, I said that I'd be happy with a point here as I could see how it was going. In the second half, their wide men had the freedom of both wings.

We've got to approach our home games differently as they are our bread and butter. It is much easier to lose fans than win them - last week we had over six and a half thousand in and if we had been winning then we would easily go over the seven thousand mark and get more each week. Each season of late we seem to have a bad run so perhaps we are getting this season's bad run over with early on. I do hope so."