Carlisle United Football Club

“We’re disappointed that we didn’t win it,” he said. “We think we were the better team and I can’t really remember Mark [Gillespie] having to make a save. 

“They’ve had a few decisions go their way round the keeper and that favoured them. It’s a really frustrating day but they’ve been on a good run. We give them the respect they deserve for that but we were the better team by a mile.”

“It was a good defensive performance from us and I thought Michael Raynes was excellent,” he commented. “He was man of the match in my eyes because he was up against players with a physical presence. 

“The rest of the back four did well and it’s another clean sheet for us. We have to take the positives and it’s another game unbeaten on top of that. We now have a big game on Monday to look forward to.”

Speaking about the club’s play-off ambitions, he said: “We’re certainly not going to give up. That won’t happen until it’s mathematically impossible. We’re still in with a shout but we know we need to start turning a few of these draws into wins.

“It’s ironic because last year we couldn’t seem to draw a game and this season we can’t seem to stop it from happening. We said at the start of the season when we were conceding goals that it wasn’t just down to the keeper and the back four that it was happening. 

“The reason they were going in is that we weren’t working together as a unit. Now we’re keeping clean sheets but not scoring goals we can’t just lay the blame with the strikers. Everyone has to chip in and we have to make sure we start picking up the wins.”

“This is a group of players with high expectations of themselves,” he explained. “Another thing I’ve said before is that I’ll be disappointed if we don’t reach the play-offs with what we’ve got in that dressing room. We’re doing it the hard way but I will be disappointed if we don’t get there.

“We have the game in hand and the gap is only six points. I think you’d have taken that at the start of the season if you’d been offered it. It’s still there for us and it’s up to us to kick on.”

And on the difference in mentality between now and this time last year, he said: “The difference between last season and this is night and day. It was a hard place to be last year because there was a lot of negativity around the place. It’s been a tough few years for Carlisle United as a football club but we’ve turned the corner and we’re starting to look up. 

“We put expectations on ourselves and the fans put expectations on us, and I have to say we had fantastic support again. It’s a long way to come and we do appreciate it. Hopefully we’ll give everybody something to smile about.” 

“The game on Monday will be a fantastic test,” he concluded. “Bristol Rovers are flying and it’ll be interesting to see if they take their foot off the gas a little bit with the way they turned us over down there. 

“We’re at a stage where we might need to take more risks by pushing a few extra players into the box to try to make sure we score, be that from a good goal or from something that hits someone on the backside and goes into the bottom corner. We’ll take it either way.”