United manager Graham Kavanagh (GK) spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's James Phillips (JP) following Carlisle's 2-0 defeat at Fleetwood in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy area quarter-finals, Kavanagh saying that in many departments the performance wasn't good enough:
JP
What did you make of this evening?
GK
A very poor performance by us, it wasn’t good enough, in many departments it wasn’t good enough. I will take part of the blame because I selected the team, I thought I could freshen up, I looked at the first sort of four games and examined why we did as well as we did and put it down and came to the conclusion that it was four Saturday games in a row with no Tuesdays.
I felt that the midweek games we either performed and then didn’t perform on the Saturday games, so I was conscious of how important the game was for us this Saturday coming against Crawley. I thought the players could play within the system, I played a 3-5-2 which quite clearly didn’t work and I had to change it after 25 minutes. I will take responsibility but there have been players who have been given an opportunity tonight to impress and quite clearly didn’t.
JP
Fleetwood obviously played their part, they played really well tonight, but I guess you would always hope that you could beat a team who played really well like Fleetwood?
GK
Well, we are a League One and they are a League Two team and you would have thought that was the other way round tonight and that is very disappointing. That sort of performance tonight that we huffed and puffed without any real quality, without any real belief, and that is obviously concerning. I have known from day one that it was a fragile group, but I am starting to realise how fragile they are.
There are one or two who need to man up, well there are five or six that need to man up, and that is the reality of it. Let’s make no bones about it, we are three points above the relegation zone at the moment, performances like that will certainly get us relegated. But, it is my job and the staff’s job to rally round them and to make them believe they can perform, which they have done.
That is what I am finding so frustrating at the minute, the topsy-turvy nature of the performances. It has not been consistent, but OK, maybe that is League One football, I don’t know, but I am looking in the first four or five games on how they can perform and the levels they can get to. It is all down to intelligence and hard work, there is nothing technical or tactical about that, it is just hard work and intelligence and we didn’t get that tonight.
JP
What would you like them to have done, once they realised how well Fleetwood had started and they are a goal down, what could they have done differently in the scenario, what would you have urged them to do that they clearly didn’t manage?
GK
Well, there is one word, I mean bravery. You have got to want the ball, you have got to get on the ball, you have got to move it with less touches. You have got to play two or three touches, it was difficult conditions tonight and we didn’t handle them and they did, they got the ball down and played.
It was a poor goal, the ball gets played in, the keeper [Greg Fleming] probably should catch it, flicks it, Davey [Symington] takes a touch in the box, he is in where we call it a red area and when you are in a red area you get rid of the ball. He takes a touch, the lad [David Ball] gets across him and gets the goal and you think straight away it is going to be a long night.
I was hoping the senior players would step up and squeeze the play, make the pitch a bit more smaller when we didn’t have the ball, but all in all we didn’t do it and we didn’t pass the ball well enough to create enough opportunities. Then at the top end of the pitch they didn’t give us the platform to give us anything to hold to get up the park and to give the back four a breather. So, it was the chicken and the egg tonight, which one comes first, but when you are conceding and you are losing early in the game you do tend to chase it, and we chased it tonight without any reward.
JP
What did you make of Greg Fleming’s display, it is his debut, it must have been a nervy night for him and you said that he might have caught that cross, but I thought in what were awful conditions out there, largely he did pretty well for you?
GK
Yeah, he did yeah and he grew into the game did Greg you know. Fair play to him, it was a difficult start because obviously you concede early and I know what it is like, especially when you are making your debut and you feel you have had a part to play in their goal. But, after that I thought he was absolutely fine, I thought he kicked well, I thought he made some good decisions and yeah, his performance was decent.
JP
You talked very honestly tonight about what the players aren’t giving you, how quickly do they have to give you that before you have to look elsewhere?
GK
Well, they have to start giving us that as from tomorrow morning. I have said to them that the reality is, it is four hours a week that we need to perform and I am talking seriously perform. Obviously, I want every hour of every day and when we train, but the reality is that you play on a Wednesday night, I want two hours, you play on a Saturday, I want two hours, play on a Tuesday, I want two hours, play on a Saturday, I want two hours.
That is not a great deal to ask but that is not to say they are not actually trying, I don’t mean that whatsoever because I think they are. But, I think there is a lack of, I don’t know if it is understanding but I don’t see how that can be the case because we worked on the shape yesterday. The basics with which we play and the principles with which we try to move the ball and how we try to defend are very, very basic, there is nothing difficult about it.
But, there wasn’t that decision making tonight, belief, I don’t know what the word is but it was difficult to put my finger on. I am going to have to look at the DVD and analyse it again, but just too many performances within the one game, from our team anyway, where we didn’t perform and we didn’t play to the levels that we have in the past for ourselves.
JP
I know when you talk about bravery you don’t just mean, although you do a bit mean, but you don’t just mean go flying into a tackle, you mean play a ball when you are under pressure and actually play your passing game don’t you?
GK
Listen, bravery comes in all different ways, I am not talking about bravery as in smashing people and flying into tackles, that is not the bravery I am talking about. I don’t think the game lends itself to that nowadays, the bravery I am talking about is being prepared to do the physical stuff, like the second balls and the headers and the tackles when we need to, and that is all fine.
But, the real important bravery I am talking about is wanting to get on the ball, especially if you are not playing well, especially in difficult conditions, you may give the ball away once or twice but still having that bravery to want it, to demand it, to get in front of your marker to actually help your team-mate out.
There were lots of times second-half when the back four had the ball and they are looking up and there is nobody really wanting it and when the ball gets played they are then looking and saying they could have had it. But, it is too late then, all it is is a hopeful ball up the pitch and we didn’t win enough of those balls and it became a difficult night.
You can probably hear in my voice that I am frustrated, I am not going to apologise for that you know, the fans again tonight were magnificent but I am saying of this minute it is now a relegation dogfight we are in because we are not performing consistently enough. I had set my targets above getting out of relegation, but that is the reality of where we are. I mean I set ourselves a target of at the time it was one and a half points when I took over per game, which would give us 62 points.
We are still above that but we are only just above that and Saturday now means we need to at least draw just to maintain it, but certainly try to win. Crawley is a game we are more than capable of winning but we make it more and more difficult for ourselves because of the confidence of the group. But, as I say, we come in tomorrow and we put an arm around them, we will try to get them back in the right frame of mind, but they have got to want to do it themselves and they have got try to help themselves.
JP
Just a couple of final quick ones, what is the situation with Matt Robson?
GK
He got a kick on his ankle and it swelled up so just as a precaution I wanted to take him off, I am not sure how he is going to be for Saturday, but he was the one who got injured tonight. Then it adds to the injury list which up to this point we haven’t had a great deal and all of a sudden we get a glut of them in the space of four or five days.
JP
And also you were hoping to get in goalkeeping cover, if not somebody to maybe be a new number one for a while ahead of the weekend, any movement on that?
GK
Maybe, it is not finalised yet so I will see where that one goes tomorrow.
JP
But you are hopeful to get somebody in hopefully for the weekend?
GK
Yeah, yeah.
JP
And I know that with that it takes up more of your budget, is there a great deal of maneuverability in finances to do more if you were to want to?
GK
I don’t know is the answer, I mean the chairman [Andrew Jenkins] and John [Nixon] and Steve [Pattison] and the directors have been first class, I have asked them for what they can give me and they have really sort of tried to push the boat out. Every time I have asked they have seen that has been a reasonable ask, I have given them a reason and an explanation as to why, and to be fair they have done everything they can in power to make it as easy for me as they can.
But, I understand I can’t keep on asking them, I think the players have to man up. I am not coming in lashing the players tonight because it is live on SKY, it was such a showcase event for us to show good we can be. Last Tuesday, it was only a week, it was eight days ago, we were absolutely outstanding against Wolves but yet we get the performance we get tonight and it is annoying and frustrating.