Harrison Neal has been a key figure in the team since his signing in early January from Sheffield United. We spoke to him in the build up to the game away at Bristol Rovers this weekend.
On his time with Carlisle United so far, “I’ve enjoyed it, the results have not gone the way we wanted, I think I’ve settled in well and hopefully we can start getting the results now.”
On his career where he started at Sheffield United in the youth set up coming through the ranks, "It was good, they do it quite different at Sheffield United, they start by getting you ready for the first team environment from a young age so it was rewardable.”
Harrison went on to have loan spells at Kettering Town and Southend United before having his first taste of EFL football in the 2022-2023 season whilst on loan at League Two side Barrow, talking about his loan spells, Neal said, “Starting at Conference North and then going to the National League, its different and that gives you all different experiences to help you going forward.”
Harrison then started this current campaign on loan at fellow League One team Stevenage, where he made 11 appearances in all competitions, talking about his time in Hertfordshire, he said: “It didn’t go as well as I thought it would have or I liked it to, I suppose you learn different things you go for all different experiences, so looking back at it now it probably was not the right move to take but I learnt something from it.”
It was announced on January 4th that he had made the permanent move to Cumbria from the Premier League club on a two-and-a-half-year deal, hoping to help the club steer away from the bottom four of League One.
Harrison spoke on his reasoning for joining the club by saying, “The club’s going forward, I played here last year (in the Barrow team during the 5-1 victory last campaign), I didn’t enjoy it because we got beat, but I just thought it looks like a good club, I spoke to the gaffer and I liked the way he sets his team so it just seemed to be the perfect fit”.
Talking about if there was anything Paul Simpson said to Harrison to think this was the right club, “Not specifically, he was speaking to me about the club direction and that’s what I got sold on.”
Having started every game since he came into the club, winning man of the match awards and most recently the club’s player of the month in his first month as a Carlisle United player, he went on to say, “I think I’ve done alright, but the results haven’t gone our way, I would rather play poorly and us pick up the win, I’m not really happy at the moment because we’re not winning.”
Looking ahead to the weekend trip to Bristol Rovers, who currently sit in 12th place after a defeat in their last game away to Northampton Town, Neal said, “Hopefully we can win, on Saturday we were very disappointing, but if you actually look at the game we started quite well, if we scored when we were on top it would have been a completely different game, we just can’t let what happened on Saturday happen again where the game just faded out.”
On the preparations in the week leading up to the trip, “We’ve had a good weeks training so far, hopefully we go in with the right attitude and pick up three points.
“When we were on top (last weekend) we needed to score and we didn’t, it’s still not acceptable, so we've just got to move on to Saturday.”
Speaking of the importance of the supporters, in what is a tough spell for the club, he said: “They are massive, we need everything we can to help us, if they can get behind us it gives us that extra push.”
