Keith Curle ahead of the weekend visit of Crawley Town
Manager Keith Curle spoke about the visit of Crawley Town on Saturday as his side looks to extend its unbeaten run to 15 league games.“I’d say Crawley are more of a footballing team than what we’ve come up against recently,” he said. “The manager has a philosophy of how he wants them to play and he likes his players to be able to handle a football.
“They have decent movement and rotation and they can be quite expansive in their approach. They like to use a 4-3-3 with two wide men and a centre forward who can drop off the line and join the midfield to cause an overload.
“They do have strengths and they like to attack. If we allow them to use the width of Brunton Park they’ll enjoy that. The focus for most teams who play us now will be on who will be the first team to beat us.
“That’s pleasing because in recent times people have come here expecting to get the three points. They didn’t have to think too much about Carlisle United because it was all about them. Fortunately we’re finding that teams don’t enjoy the trip here as much any more.”
“I have no doubt this will be a tough game,” he continued. “We need to have one eye on what their strengths are, which we think will be their front three. I think it will be a game which will take the full 95 minutes to pan out because I don’t think either team will go gung-ho.
“Once both teams have settled into the game it could become a very interesting encounter. The thing everyone is looking forward to from our point of view is they know we they have a squad of players who want to play football.
“We also know we’ve earned every result we get because nobody has rolled over for us. You can get fed up of me saying it but it’s all down to that fact that we’re all working extremely hard to make sure we’re fully aware of what our opponents can do and how we can exploit them in return.”
As for the supporters, he said: “If I could say one thing to the fans ahead of the Crawley game it would be - see you on Saturday. It’s the end of the half-term holiday so it’s a great way to reward the kids who have been well behaved all week. The kids should be saying to their parents, I’ve been good all week, can you take me to the football!
“It’s a great opportunity to find out if we’ve done enough to get the supporters who came to the Hartlepool game to come again. Hopefully we’ve done enough to show that we’ve started something and that we have good intentions.
“There’s a different feel to Brunton Park at the moment and there’s a lot of emphasis on quality. The changes we’ve implemented are starting to take shape and people are enjoying their football club again. The club is a hive of activity and it’s a good place to be.”
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