Two quickfire first-half goals put league leaders Forest Green Rovers in the driving seat at Brunton Park on Saturday afternoon and they ultimately took the points as they cemented their early-season position at the top of the pile.
Speaking after the game, manager Chris Beech said: “We’re frustrated about the result because it doesn’t really mirror the performance.
“If you speak to Forest Green I would imagine they’d be pretty respectful of the fact they’ve enjoyed getting a win here because we did compete very well, but ultimately we didn’t get what we want, which is the win for ourselves.
“We started well, but all of the weren’t quite ticked because we didn’t get the goal. The biggest box remained unticked. I haven’t had time to properly review the chances after the game, but I’ve quickly looked at a couple of them and they are really good chances.
“We should make more of that, but we didn’t, and the break of the game becomes the corner. Often, in League Two, Conference or League One football, or even at the high end now, games are changed on moments like that.
“It’s been too much on us, I don’t mind talking about it, it’s no good hiding from it because we have to be better at doing it. We didn’t deal with that corner and Jamille Matt and his team benefit by getting the goal.”
On the disappointment of it being a set-piece that turned the run of the game, he told us: “They do that when they go against you, and we aren’t turning them in for us. That’s not good. You want that to be working in your favour.
“I would suggest the ball is in a good area in terms of how we’ll defend it and what we worked on, we could look at working on the runs, but ultimately you’ve got to mark strong. Jonathan [Dinzeyi] had a good league debut considering he’s playing the team at the top of the league, but he will have learned a lot - and he’ll have to learn quickly because that’s what it’s like in the first team environment.
“He’s adjusted well in the last four or five weeks since he’s been here, he’s been patient, and he did some great things today. He was up against an old school traditional type centre forward and, to be fair, he gave as good as he got, but Jamille got the better of him at that moment in a set play, and it’s a moment that’s so vital.
“In other games it’s been down to a lack of concentration in the moment, and that’s why it’s important to stay energised when you’re preparing to defend them. When I look at those goals in detail, they’re all avoidable if the lads are doing what they normally do.
“In this case they did that better but you are playing against a player that sniffs a goal in those situations, he knows they’re his bread and butter to try and get his 15 or 20 goals, and he got the better of Jonathan on one occasion really, and it goes in the back of the net. It happens.”
And with the second goal coming so soon after the first, he agreed that it suddenly left the players with a mountain to climb.
“If you look at the detail of what happened with that, we were too deep from a kick from the goalkeeper,” he explained. “We were never that deep before the psychological impact of having conceded the first goal, and there’s a little bit that I don’t like within that, but I won’t share that too much with you in terms of who is challenging and who should do what.
“Ultimately it made it easier for the player to get a chance to start up the goal. Our best way of dealing with that type of quality is to stop it at source but because of the way we set up, it just wasn’t right.
“That allowed somebody to get out through the gate and off he went. You can’t deny the quality of the shot, it was excellent, but we’ve got to stop it.
“I thought we responded in terms of having some play, but what we couldn’t do was work the goalkeeper. What I did enjoy was the players not turning down, but turning up. If they continue with those traits and with those mannerisms they’ll have better days in football.
“Then when you get one of those you jump on another one, and you can then have some consistent behaviours to winning. Obviously we’re not winning at the moment and we’re all in this sport to do that.
“There are a lot of clubs in all divisions that struggle with that at this time of year, they don’t find the flow straight away. We have much change at Carlisle, there’s always a turnover of a lot of things, so within that it’s almost like you’re starting again.
“I was really pleased with pre-season and August, I felt like we should have had more points for the performances they gave us, but September hasn’t been a great month. To start October with this performance is good, but not the result.
“We have to move on from learning from things that have held us back, and make sure that we implement our traits, because that represents helping us to get three points.”
On the response from the players to a disappointing Sutton away day, he said: “It was much-improved from last week.
“You can see that in the performance and the way the players care, how they’ve run today. If that wasn’t there, you’d be on thin ice. That was solid in terms of that attitude.
“We lacked a little bit of quality to get the goal but we definitely had Forest Green on the back foot. That’s why they celebrated the win almost like they’ve won the league already.
“The lads worked very hard, started the game well, we knew we’d have to be at our best to compete against a team that’s currently leading the standards in scoring goals and keeping goals out. I was really pleased with how we started the match.
“We had three or four good opportunities but they had a couple too, it was a really good game, but the break of the game is obviously that set play. You try to put a plan in place to win a game and I think on the display, the players represented that.
“I wouldn’t look into too much tactically, the lads set out well, pressed well, got the ball back well, we played some good football at times, we did lack clear-cut chances but the game was fast, a good game really for League Two football, but you want to make sure you’re on the right side of the line for three points and we weren’t.
“The lads are talking in the dressing room and they know what we need to do to represent our value better, regularly. I know there have been anomalies in it with players leaving 12 hours before the season started, and a day or so before the window closes.
“That’s difficult as a manager, you’re trying to fix that when you look at the squad and thinking you’ve only got four defenders left. But we’ve done that and moved on.
“Today the performance was excellent, but it wasn’t good enough to beat a very good team. That’s often on something so small. Again our shot count was quite high.
“Within the 13 games, inclusive of cup matches, we’ve had in my opinion two disappointing performances, one last week and one against Hartlepool over the 95 minutes.”
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