After Carlisle United’s 2-1 defeat away at Tamworth, we spoke to Mark Hughes.
Speaking after the game, Hughes discussed a disappointing performance, the key moments in the match and his frustration at letting a lead slip.
Here is everything we learnt:
A disappointing performance
“Very poor today, arguably one of our worst performances this season unfortunately.
“It’s come at a time when really our performances have to be spot on and today it wasn’t.
“We got what we deserved today which was absolutely nothing.”
A frustrating first-half
“First-half was really disappointing in what we produced but at half-time you think maybe we’ve got away with it.
“We came out, got our noses in front at 1-0 but we weren’t playing particularly well.”
Fundamentals missing from the performance
“You’ve got to do the fundamentals correctly, you’ve got to defend correctly, you’ve got to mark runners and challenge in key moments of the game.
“We were lacking all those elements of our play today unfortunately, certainly in the second-half.
“We’ve been beaten deservedly so in my view.”
Failing to impact the game
“You know beforehand what you’re going to be facing so you’ve got to be ready and determined that you’re going to affect the game individually and collectively.
“We didn’t do that at any point in the game unfortunately.
“It was as poor a performance as I’ve seen from us.”
The half-time change
“We needed to do something because we didn’t have a shot on goal in the first-half.
“We couldn’t get the ball up front, it wouldn’t stick and we couldn’t get anybody to give us any craft.”
A brief improvement after the break
“We were slightly better in the second-half, not much if I’m honest but slightly.
“We were able to get a goal and go in front but when you’re in a winning position you need to see the game out and we weren’t able to do that.”
Not capitalising on the opening goal
“We scored a goal arguably against the run of play.
“When you get a break in a game when you’re not playing particularly well you’ve got to make sure you capitalise on it.
“We didn’t do that.”
Missing key players
“Georgie [Kelly] has got a slight issue with his calf so he wasn’t available.
“With Charlie [Wyke], given his recent history, we weren’t going to risk him on the surface but hopefully we’ll get good minutes into him this week [in a bounce game on Tuesday].”
No excuses despite a busy week
“I could look at any number of excuses but you’ve got to be ready to go again.
“It’s a hard league and if you’re not ready then you get turned over and that’s what’s happened.”
Focus on the response
“I’ve no doubt we’ll be fine at the weekend and we’ll go again.
“But I’m more concerned with what happened today. I’m really disappointed with the level we produced.
“At no point did we really dominate the game and you’ve got to do more for 90 minutes than we did today.”
