Carlisle United Football Club

“It’ll be a massive game,” he said. “There’ll be no quarter given or taken. We won’t ask for anything from Accrington but we’ll go there to go toe to toe and then play. 

“They’ll feel they still need points to make sure they stay out of things at the bottom of the table and we know we’re going to have to earn everything we get. Nobody will give us anything.”

“Friday was a good example of how hard we are going to have to work,” he added. “I’m sure everyone thought, when we got the early goal, it was going to be the springboard. It’s just not going to work out like that. As we saw, if we don’t keep doing our jobs for the full 90 minutes we’ll leave ourselves open to being punished.

“We’ll take big numbers to Accrington again and we want to put on a performance for them. Ever since I came to this club the travelling support has been fantastic, as has the home support.

 

“People talk about being fearful of the Paddock but I can definitely hear them. Let me tell you, a lot of the things they say are right. 

“They have a good understanding of football and I can deal with that. It’s actually quite pleasing because at least they’re shouting stuff that’s relevant and has meaning. If they were just shouting ‘sit down you grey haired idiot’ and things like that, then it’s no use to anyone. 

“The fact they shout things which show they have knowledge of the game is really refreshing. They want us to score goals and they want us to win. That’s great support to have.”

On player availability, he said: “Anthony Griffith is back in the fold. He was at the game on Friday and he comes back to us having played two full games. He looks refreshed but I didn’t include him for Portsmouth because he hadn’t had training time with us and he’d done a lot of travelling. We know we’re going to need him at some point through the games we have left.

“Troy Archibald-Henville will obviously be back and available after his suspension. That again gives us more options. We’ll have to wait and see with Jeffrey Monakana because picked up an injury which we’re desperately trying to get settled. 

“Our physio Neil Dalton deemed the appropriate thing to do was to leave him down with his parent club for last week. The rehab facilities they have down there are state of the art. We’ve been in constant contact and we’re hoping to see him back up here this week. He’ll be assessed by them over the weekend because there’s no point in him sitting in a car to come all the way up here if he can’t be active.”

“Other than that we have players chomping at the bit,” he concluded. “These are the types of game we have to relish because we’re in a battle, and we have to fight for everything. Our fans will be behind us every step of the way and we owe it to them to make sure we leave everything we have out on that pitch.”