Carlisle manager Keith Curle spoke to us about this weekend’s home game against Cheltenham Town as he looks for his squad to build on what has been a very good start to the season.
“Winning games does breed confidence and the manner of the individual and collective performances within the victories we’ve enjoyed showed that the players are taking on board the information we’re giving them,” he said. “Part and parcel of what we always try to do is nullify the opposition with one eye on making sure we still play our game and cause the opposition as many problems as possible.
“With the way we play we’re a team that needs to make sure it’s well organised and well drilled with a good understanding of our roles and responsibilities. The result at Fleetwood came from us having those qualities because we justifiably got the win against a side who will be pushing for promotion again this season.
“The performance levels were replicated against a Cambridge side who have been very busy in the transfer market and who have a very strong spine in their team. We saw both away games as a challenge, with different requirements, and we coped with everything that was asked of us.”
“Obviously there’s still disappointment there at the fact we lost our opening game,” he commented. “Just a few days after we’d played Swindon they added another player to their squad for £350,000. They’re another club throwing resources at it but, on another day, we’d have got at least a draw out of them, particularly with the way we played in the second half.
“It’s important that we stick to our beliefs and the way we want to play because results will come off the back of it. We have some good players here and they’re all determined to do as well as they can, because they’re hungry for success.”
On what we can expect from our visitors, he said: “I think they’ll be quite direct and they do have a good physical presence about them. They’ve got very good pace and they look for the counter-attack as much as possible. They have goals in their team but we think they will sit back to try to catch us out.
“We’ll need to be patient in our build-up and we’ll have to make sure we’re putting balls into the right areas. We’ll be mindful that they’re a good side who can score goals and who will set traps for us as much as they can.
“They’ll try to force us to play the balls in to areas where they’ll be able to take it off us, but the players know their roles and they’ll be ready for it.
“Cheltenham will be confident because they’ve had some good results and you can tell they all understand how Gary wants them to play. His approach suits the players he’s brought together and we’ll have to be mindful of that.”
And on putting the disappointment of the opening well and truly behind us, he said: “Lessons have been learned and we’ll be looking to create chances and get on the front-foot from the off.
“The good results on the road have lifted everybody and the players want to bring that back to Brunton Park. We know our pitch and stadium is geared to playing football and we have some good players in the team as well.
We’ve got a blend of football we want to produce and we want to get bums off seats by getting the ball into good areas as and when the situation allows ...
“We’ve got a blend of football we want to produce and we want to get bums off seats by getting the ball into good areas as and when the situation allows. Ultimately we want to entertain and the best way to do that is to use all of our knowledge and attributes to produce good performances and win games.”
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