Keith Curle ahead of the visit of Hartlepool
Manager Keith Curle spoke to us ahead of the visit of Hartlepool on Tuesday night.
“The next two home games are massive,” he said. “Hartlepool will come here to do a job. They have previous members of staff and players who have been with us recently, and they will want to spoil our party.
“It all adds to the mix and what we need to do is focus on ourselves and what we need to do. The respect we show them will be exactly the same as we show to every other team.
“The preparation for the game started on Saturday night because, as with every team we play, we want to give ourselves the best chance possible of getting a result.”
“It’s a great game for the fans,” he continued. “As we said at the weekend, we’re at a stage of the season where it’s no longer about performances. It’s about results.
“We want every single Cumbrian who has any affiliation with the football club to turn up and help us get that ball over the line. The supporters have done it for us before when they’ve got behind us and we want them to get behind us again this week.”
On the chance of new signing Luis Pedro making a return to the fold, he said: “He made his debut last Monday and he gave us a good hour in the reserve game on Tuesday.
“We’re working on the physical aspects of his development and what we didn’t want to do was take him a huge amount of miles to Portsmouth when he wasn’t guaranteed to play.
“It was more important for him that he was working back at home on his fitness programme and he trained with the youth team to keep his football sharpness up. We’ll find that he’ll be very fresh, should we need him this week.
“Steven Rigg will probably miss Tuesday but he should be ready for the weekend.”
