Hartlepool boss Mick Wadsworth spoke to the assembled press and his club's official website ahead of his side's League One game against the Blues at Brunton Park this evening, former United manager Wadsworth first looking back to the Cumbrians defeating Pools 4-0 at Victoria Park in late September thanks in part to a Gary Madine hat-trick :
"Carlisle came here and gave us a good hiding. I had a great time at Carlisle and it's always nice to go back. I've got great friends there. It's a great club and I had a wonderful ttime there. But I've no sentiment for them winning, losing or drawing. They're a bit Jekyll and Hyde - they look terrific and then look average, but that's a mark of this league.
“We’re at that stage of the season where we’re desperate to get beyond 50 points quickly. After that we’re desperate to see how far we can go and I’ve said to the players that if we can win three out of the next four then I think it’ll be interesting to see where we stand in relation to the clubs above us.
"Carlisle have had an up and down season and are around us in the table so this is an important game for us tonight. It's important for us to go there in good heart and high spirits because if we can play with the confidence and intensity we've shown recently then we've a good chance of getting a result. They will see us as a team they think they can beat, I'm sure that will be the case because they beat us convincingly earlier in the season - but we're a better team now so we're looking forward to it.
“I know how cup-final appearances can distract teams. But if you look at Carlisle and Brentford then they’ve been doing okay recently. I know when I took Carlisle to the same final against Birmingham it had an effect on us. We’d lost two games all season and on the Saturday before the final we played Bury and on the Monday, because it was Easter, we played Hartlepool.
“We needed one point to secure promotion or a win in either game to secure the title. We lost 2-1 at Bury, but we had a young team out and Rory Delap and Paul Murray both played. I thought that’s fair enough because it was a young team and Bury were decent. But then we had Hartlepool at home on the Monday who were near the bottom of the league. we thought it was a home banker but we lost 1-0.
“We gave a great account of ourselves in the final in front of 70,000 but lost to Barry Fry’s Birmingham. We did, though, go to Colchester a week later and won the championship. So I’m well aware of what can happen when you’re in a final. But it’s more to do with them than it is us.”
While Pools winger Andy Monkhouse told the Journal that he thinks his side can still make it into the play-off spots :
“Both the last two years have gone down to the last game, so anything better than that is a bonus. Ask anyone at the club, getting to 50, 51, 52 points, whatever the safety mark is, that’s the priority. But even to be talking about the possibility of the play-offs is great. We’re going well to look at the table and think we can get in there. With 12 games left there’s a lot to play for and if you get a few results, you never know, we might sneak in there.”
In team news for the visitors this evening their biggest absentee will be first-choice right-back Neil Austin who is still sidelined with a calf injury, while also out, this time with a thigh problem, is teenage striker Billy Greulich. Meanwhile, another youngster, in left-winger Billy Blackford has a long-term knee injury, and there are also doubts over Uruguayan playmaker Fabian Yantorno who hurt his ankle in a reserve team win at Middlesbrough last week.
The referee for this evening's match is Russell Booth from Mansfield and he will be assisted down the lines by Nick Greenhalgh from Bury and Ken Haycock from Bradford. Meanwhile the fourth official is Paul Curry from Morpeth in Northumberland.