Tough spells often bring the senior heads in the group to the fore, and with United looking for a return to winning ways tomorrow evening Chris Beech spoke about the need for leaders to take responsibility all over the pitch.
“I’ve played with players who used to bang their chests and rip their shirt off, put deep heat all over their neck then go out and concede twice within the first 10 minutes,” he said. “There are different ways of showing things, but I know these players care.
“I care, and none of us are happy with where we are right now. We come through it by doing good things, and by doing things better whenever the opportunity comes your way.
“We have players who are fully committed. Dean Furman was fully committed, and he had a good game. Rod McDonald won his headers, he played some good passes and he was positive.
“What we have to make sure is that we build together, stay strong together and look at working hard to move forward.
“I’ve talked about us needing to be more vocal but Saturday was the loudest I’ve heard us finish a game. The lads are fighting out on the pitch to get us something and it’s hurting them that we aren’t.
“I’m the same. I’m me, I give 100%, I love Carlisle and I know our players love being here. We’ve changed a lot of things in a short space of time and we’ll continue to work very hard to commit to the opportunities we have and to turn something that’s now a negative perspective around.”
And on the need to be able to recover should the opposition find the back of the net, he commented: “That’s the kind of stat when you’re winning well, as we were through the first half of the season, that it doesn’t ever come into play because you tend to be ahead.
“I’ve seen the stat about us conceding more chances than we were in November and December, but we were the best team in the league at that point. It’s always going to be a stat that beats any other stats if you’re at the top of the table.
“On Saturday Morecambe had 11 chances and we had 10. Possession was similar at 50:50 but they got the break, they got the goals. The third goal makes the result look great but really there was no significant difference in that match.
“We started better than them but it doesn’t mean anything if you give things away.”
“For me, us losing games from winning positions is criminal,” he concluded. “One might be excused, but you can’t have five escape you in the way it’s happened in this period of games.
“But it’s happened, that’s fact, and what we need to do is work very hard to make sure it gets better. The players can take full accolades for what they achieved during our good run, and they’re working very hard to get back to doing what we all know they can do.”
