United manager Graham Kavanagh (GK) spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's James Phillips (JP) following Carlisle's 0-0 League One draw away to Rotherham, Kavanagh saying it was an absolutely tremendous performance from the Blues:
JP
You must be absolutely delighted?
GK
Yeah, extremely pleased, an absolutely tremendous performance, great work-rate, great honesty, great determination, especially going down to ten men with Conor Townsend getting sent off. I think it was probably a sending off, he was maybe a little bit naïve, two yellow cards, especially straight away after having the first yellow he gets a second. But, he is a young kid, he has been outstanding for us and I am sure he will learn from it.
JP
That will be the end of his current loan won’t it, he won’t get to play again in that final match now. He said he wants to come back in January, are the club working towards that yet or is that something you have to think about?
GK
Well, no, we are working towards it, we have had a discussion, I had a discussion with Conor, it is obviously just preliminary at the minute but that would be something that we would like to do.
JP
He has been a great player hasn’t he on this loan, he has done really well?
GK
He has been outstanding, he has grown, I mean I wouldn’t say I was his biggest fan when he first came. I thought there were parts of his game he really needed to improve , and I think things sometime happen for a reason. In the game against Sheffield United Lewis Guy came off after 20 minutes, I decided then to put Conor on and he has just grown since then.
He was outstanding, he played really, really well against Stevenage and I think his confidence just grew. He loves being around the group, he loves being involved in the first team environment and I think that is a little bit of frustration maybe now on his part that he is going to go back and not really play. But, as I say, hopefully we can get something done in January.
JP
However, for all his accolades, his sending off today meant the team had to work very hard to hold on here and how impressed and happy were you with the way that they managed to do that?
GK
Do you know what, sometimes you get turning points in the season and I am really hoping that Tuesday’s second-half performance was. Everything was against us, we weren’t playing well, we hadn’t really helped ourselves, there were a lot of words at half-time from the players especially. I added to that at the end but I was pretty constructive and asked for a performance and I thought they gave us no ends of a performance in terms of quality, in terms of work-rate, desire and real sort of courage if you like.
Because, it was a difficult game on Tuesday night against a non-league team who were expected to win against, and luckily enough we got over the line, and the manner in which we won late in the game gave everybody a good boost. So, today was an important fixture to see if we could sustain it and I think the rhythm of the game was broken after the sending off, but certainly the intensity with which we played didn’t break and we just kept going.
JP
And a tremendous performance from Ben Amos on his return, I am sure he would have liked to have been straight back in in the week but not eligible to play, back in goal today and imperious?
GK
He was outstanding, absolutely outstanding, everything that came in the box today he was in and around and he gave great confidence to his defenders. He decided if he was going to punch or if he was going to catch and whatever decision he made was the right one. I think he got lucky at the end with a deflection that he saved with his body and then Max Ehmer cleared off the line. But, I think when you work as hard as he does in training and play as well as he did today then I think he deserved that luck.
JP
When some fans talk about players looking like in some of the recent games not showing even quite enough heart out there, which I know you might not perhaps agree with, today blocks from Matt Robson, from James Berrett, from Paul Thirlwell, just throwing themselves and their bodies on the line to block things, that must be able to give you some way where you can say, look, that is what you should be doing all the time?
GK
I would go right the way through the team and say that that happened today. I would never question their desire and drive to want to be better, I think the intensity at times isn’t what it can be. Sometimes I maybe criticise because it is not of the level I want, not because they don’t want to but because they sort of doubt themselves I suppose. I keep saying, stop thinking about it and just go and play.
David Amoo came in today and put in a right shift when he came on off the bench, Lee Miller I thought was absolutely outstanding. The whole spine of the team, Max, Sean [O’Hanlon], Thir, Nobs [Liam Noble], Bez [James Berrett]. Matty Robson went from left wing to left back and he looked like he had played there for a long time. So, there were a lot of people did jobs today that not necessarily have they done of late in the sense of the difficulty of their performances, especially against eleven men.
But, they applied themselves brilliantly and at the end at the death we could have nicked it. I mean Adam Collin made a very good save with his feet and we had a period of sustained corners, but it wasn’t to be today. But, the referee [Mark Brown] didn’t help, I think he was very, very quick to get his whistle out, certainly from our point of view, breaking a lot of our attacks up and the momentum we tried to play at. But, very pleased with a point.
JP
A couple of the players, you have already mentioned David Amoo, but James Berrett as well, both of them have largely been mainstays over the last year or so, you have taken them out of the team for a little bit and then brought them back in and it seems to have got the right sort of reaction from them?
GK
Well, I think in David Amoo’s case anyway, he has been a player who has played at a lot of clubs and he is probably your typical winger in the sense that he can be outstanding and then he can be a little bit indifferent. I think we have to try to be patient with him, I think I am getting to know David’s character a lot more now and I am doing an awful lot more work with him and trying to understand him I suppose and trying to know what makes him tick.
But, I know that he doubts himself a lot and as I said to him yesterday, if he believes in himself as much as I believe in him then he will be a real top, top player. But, that is something we have to work on, I think James Berrett, I looked in his eyes on Tuesday night, in really difficult circumstances I could have asked Bez would you go on and he could have gone through the motions. But, straight away, he stood up, he said he was ready, he said he was going to do a job.
I thought he was excellent when he came on and I thought he was excellent again today, he played on the left of a three when we went to a 4-4-1 in a role that he is probably not familiar with. But, as you have seen again, he got on the ball, he got his blocks in, he tried to make things happen, he extended the game by running long when he needed to, closing down and trying to get us in behind their back four. To a man I couldn’t fault any of them.
JP
And you have got this point away, a really hard-fought point on the road, you play Crewe who have lost again today and that allows you to get back ahead of your one and a half points a game if you can pick up the three points, big if, on Tuesday night?
GK
Yeah, well I think the first thing I would say is please God, hopefully we have a good crowd at home, and hopefully if we don’t score after 15-20-25 minutes, whatever it may be, that the fans remain patient. We will be doing our absolute utmost to win the game but it is not a guarantee, again, I am promising everybody it is not a guaranteed three points. If we as a group think that all we have to do is turn up then we will very much come unstuck.
We have got to show the same application we showed today, we have obviously got to add quality to it, we have got to put them on the back foot early in the games and put pressure on them and ask questions of them. If we can then let’s see if they can handle it, but I would ask the fans to be as patient as they possibly can be, which I am sure they will be. But, it is just an opportunity for us certainly to get back to winning ways at home and that is what we will be definitely asking of the group.
JP
Any knocks or anything coming out of the game?
GK
Yeah, there quite a few, but do you know what, there always is, but they keep churning themselves out. I mean Paul Thirlwell wasn’t playing yesterday, we couldn’t do the work on the team shape we wanted to because he wasn’t able to play. He has had a problem with his Achilles for a period and I just said to him, look ring me this morning and let me know how you feel.
He said look, just throw me out there, I will give it my all as I always do and a lot of people don’t see that with Thir, that is the character he is. But, he is desperate to do well for himself, for the team, for the group, and he wants to really shine amongst the youngsters and hopefully give them a platform to see how he performs, they will actually follow him, they will grasp that mettle and work as hard and as intelligently as he does.
JP
And I have got to ask, Courtney Meppen-Walter, have you spoken to him and is there anything to report on that?
GK
Erm, watch this space. Yeah, I mean I am hoping it is agreed for Monday but we will probably have a bit more news for Monday.
JP
That sounds like good news, he has clearly impressed, does he seem keen to join then if everything can be agreed?
GK
Yeah, he does yeah. I mean I haven’t had a definitive yes off him, I have had a yes off his agent and as it is at the moment it is a short-term contract. There are a number of reasons for that and I will explain those at a later date. But, it is an opportunity now for Courtney to come and play some games, which we haven’t seen him in games. I think there is tremendous potential with him, it is dragging that potential out of him.
But, from the day he has walked into the club to now he is a different footballer, and as you would expect, he has been out for 16 months for all the reasons we know. But, he hasn’t played and I think he is really relishing that opportunity of being in a first team environment and having the respect of the group that he has got now, and also the way that the lads have treated him.
He has settled in and I think he has been really pleased, but I don’t think it is a foregone conclusion that he is going to be here for a long period of time. I am hoping that is the case, it is an opportunity for us right at this moment to short-term cement where we want to be and let him feel for us and we will be doing exactly the same.
But, we will have seen him then in that period in a 90 minute game and I am hoping we can then move sort of one or two out. Because, at the moment the squad is very much top heavy, John Nixon has said it to me and I absolutely understand. But, in saying that I want to be selfish and I want to get the best group on the pitch I can possibly get. I want to be constantly asking questions of improvement and if we can do that then I am sure the club will give me the funds to do so.