Carlisle United Football Club

“Exeter will come here prepared and ready to go,” he said. “They’ll have had a look at the Morecambe game and they’ll see that we were caught on the break. 

“I’m sure they’ll have a game plan to try to achieve the same. I think they’ll play a defensively minded game to try to tempt us forward in numbers. 

“I don’t think they’re as expansive as they were last season. Paul [Tisdale] utilises what he has in the building and that’s credit to him. He always gets the best out of his group. They’ve got an out ball to the right and they have a physical presence with a bit of know-how up front.”

“We’ve learned lessons from our last two home games,” he added. “There’s been a level of frustration from myself, the players and the coaching staff because we’ve lost two games off the back of two excellent away results.

“We wanted to come back here and show everyone what we were about. That was possibly our downfall because we were eager to get out there and get at them. That left us exposed at the back so we’re mindful of that. However, there are still lots of positives to take and the good thing is we are still creating chances.

“We know we’ve got goals in the team so we need to stay patient. All games in this division are winnable because we have a very competitive team.”

On the injury situation, he said: “Charlie Wyke and Jabo Ibehre are progressing with their rehab programmes. It’ll probably be a little bit of time until they are both back and fully firing. They’ve been doing a lot of work with Lee Fearn and Neil Dalton so that’s good news.

“In terms of players going out, I’ve had two phone calls. One was for Courtney Meppen-Walter and the other was to express an interest in Connor Hammell. We’re waiting to see if there is room in the squad and finances available from the club interested in Courtney and we want to make sure the level is right for Connor to go out and get the pitch time he needs.”