This Saturday sees United’s resilient fan base notch up close to 1,800 miles of return journey travel in the space of just three weekends as they head to London for the first-round proper of this season’s Emirates FA Cup competition.
“To be a Carlisle United supporter you have to have incredible commitment and dedication,” manager Paul Simpson said. “It’s not just the time, it’s the cost spent to go away, so it’s absolutely fantastic from them to do it.
“When we go over and applaud them, although we have grounds where it’s just a mass of faces, you generally see the same faces who are there, when the coach turns up, it’s the same faces.
“It is brilliant. We need them with us. What we have to do is start being better with our performances to keep them with us.”
And the focus in training this week has been on finding a reaction from the disappointment of last weekend’s result.
“Everybody knows how I am, I don’t tend to dwell on it,” he told us. “We’ve just got ourselves back to work and we’ve trained this week. We’re making demands on players, and we’ve had some really good sessions.
“Players are applying themselves right but again, I don’t want us to be training ground players. I want us to go and perform where and when it really matters.
“That’s what the games are about, everything we’re doing is in preparation for us to try and get the performance right on a Saturday. That’s the only thing I’m concerned with now.
“I’ve said this before as well, I’d much rather we weren’t having to bounce back. I’d rather we just got a level of performance that means we’re winning regularly.
“The proof will be in the pudding this weekend when we go out to play. Hopefully we’ll do enough to get a result. There are going to have to be changes because we have Jack Armer and Alfie McCalmont suspended, so other players will get their chance.
“I can say now that Jack Robinson will play, unless something happens between now and Saturday. He’s worked hard, he’s earned the right, and this is a chance for him. Anyone else who comes in, it’s up to them to take their opportunity as well.
“What we want is consistency. I also keep saying this, I don’t want to have to be talking about let’s get a response, we have to be responsible for getting a level of performance that’s acceptable.
“Last weekend we didn’t, even though first half I thought we were ok, even at half time I’m thinking we’ll be ok, even though they got some harsh words, but the second half we let ourselves down in terms of our decision making and technical stuff, and pulling shirts and that type of thing.
“We want to improve and we want to be doing that consistently.”
