United boss Steven Pressley spoke to us about Saturday’s visit of Cambridge United at his weekly press conference.
“There’s plenty for us to feel positive about following the performance last weekend but the key now is that we have to build on it,” he said. “We obviously had a really important win against Swindon in our last home game, but we followed that up with the disappointment of the Notts County result.
“Having gone through that the focus was on doing things properly at Forest Green and, even though we didn’t get the three points, the overall performance was excellent. I’ve looked at it again, and analysed the detail of the game, I stand by what I said afterwards in that it’s the best 90 minutes I’ve seen since I came to the club.
“That leaves us with a lot to feel good about, but we know we’re coming up against a well organised Cambridge side, and that means we have to do things properly again.”
“Cambridge have played a number of systems of late so we’re a little bit unsure at this point as to how they’ll line up against us,” he explained. “They’ve used 4-4-2 and a 4-3-1-2 and they were very effective with both of them.
“We have to look at that along with the players we have available and decide what we think is best for that particular game.”
“Carlisle fans are more than aware of good players they have in their ranks with the likes of Jabo Ibehre, David Amoo and Reggie Lambe, and we’ll have to take care of players like that if we want to be successful,” he added. “There are never any easy games, and Saturday will be no different.
“If we carry out what we want to do in the right way, then we’ll get our result. We can’t keep relying on other people and that’s why the win is so important to us. English leagues are so fantastic because every club is fighting for something come this stage of the season.
“It’s great to be involved in it, but it does make every single fixture very difficult for its own reasons and permutations.”
On meeting up with former Scotland team mate Colin Calderwood again, he said: “Cambridge have drawn their last couple of games against Oldham and Crewe and they have a relatively new manager in place.
“I don’t see from their performances that they’re low in confidence because they’ve managed to escape from the fight they were in at the bottom of the league, even though they’re still not completely out of it.
“Colin [Calderwood] is a very experienced manager and he’s also a very good coach. He’s got them well organised and he’ll know the importance of the game for his team.
“I was in the Scotland squad with Colin in my early days. He was playing regularly and I was just sneaking in the back door and travelling, but not really featuring too much. He was a great servant to Scotland and I’ve seen him a couple of times since.
“I have a lot of respect for him as a coach and as a person, and the one thing I know about him is that he’ll be prepared and he’ll have his team ready to come at us.
“They obviously missed their game last weekend because of the weather. I hope that works in our favour, but the most important thing this Saturday is us and what we do. The team is feeling good about itself again, but we have to back that up with a victory, because we need the three points for our own reasons as well.”
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