Carlisle United Football Club

“It’s always nice when you come away from home and you win,” he said. “We know we have to put more of our chances away but we’re a work in progress. I haven’t hidden away from the fact that it hasn’t always gone the way we wanted it to, but we’re looking to finish the season by being competitive and by winning matches.

“If we’d come away and did what Cambridge did to Morecambe last week I don’t think there could have been many complaints. We created some very good chances and we got some decent balls into the box. We showed enough creativity to have won the game by more than one goal, and that is by no means being disrespectful to Crawley.”

“We tried forcing our play, at times, but it was another committed performance,” he said. “With the way we played we wanted to take a look back at some of the things we were doing at the beginning of the season. There was more balance in the team with having the left footed players of Danny Grainger and Macaulay Gillesphey, and we felt hat gave us a good opportunity to play out from the back. 

“If you’re confident in doing it that way it forces the other team to send players out to stop you from playing the ball around. That can leave massive gaps and I thought we were excellent on those occasions when we did get out and play through them. 

“It showed we have method in our madness even though it got a little bit frantic every now and then. It’s about players making the right decisions at the right times. We worked on it today and we’ll look at doing more of the same once we’ve analysed it and had a look at what we could have done better next week.

“The fact is if you can get your split second decision making right at the back you can end up just two or three seconds later by having a shooting chance at the other end. We’ll work on it because, as I say, when the time is right it’s how we want to play.

“The mindset we want to have is that we want to play entertaining and attractive football which results in us scoring goals and winning football matches. That’s the bedrock of the philosophy of how we want things to be at this football club. 

“We want to be successful and that starts against Oxford next week. They are a team who are where we want to be at this moment in time and I think we can show them we’re also going to be a force to be reckoned with.”

“There’s an air of frustration around at the moment because it’s all ifs, ands, possibles and probables,” he said. “We’re looking at the top end of the table and you can cast your mind back to some of the points we had which we let slip.

“There were results and games which were there for the taking, in my opinion, which we didn’t grasp. The pleasing thing is that we have foundations firmly in place which are now good pillars for success. 

“We’ve taken massive strides as a football club because we have to bear in mind that relegation does leave an aftertaste. There are things you have to deal with and I firmly believe the new structure we’re putting in place can only benefit us in the long term.”

On the players missing from the match day 18, he said: “Dave Atkinson travelled with us and he is fit and well. He wasn’t able to train fully on Thursday and I don’t want to risk any players who aren’t quite there, because of where we are in the season. 

“Michael Raynes is going to see his doctor because he had a brain scan and I think they actually found something! He’s really pleased about that. Seriously though we’re waiting for the written report and we have to be bound by that and by any advice we get from the specialists when it comes to dealing with head injuries. 

“Anything they say is for the health and welfare of the player and we are well in tune with that. Hopefully he’ll get the all clear sooner rather than later.”