Greg Abbott On Tonight's Defeat

Last updated : 15 September 2007 By Thetashkentterror

Greg Abbott
United caretaker manager Greg Abbott spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's Derek Lacey on Friday night as he talked about Swansea's 2-1 win over Carlisle at the Liberty Stadium, Abbott suggesting that one mistake had cost the Blues all three points :


DL - Looking at the overall play you can't really argue with the result?

GA - " Can't we argue with the result? Did you watch a different game to me? I'm arguing with the result, I'm arguing with that, I thought that we were terrific. I thought we created chances, I thought the gameplan was working fantastic, it was a mistake, Keiren (Westwood) spilled the ball. They had nothing, absolutely nothing with their play, they had loads of pretty stuff, passing it here and passing it there but not hurting us. Then we were hurting them every time we went forward, I thought we were hurting them. Danny Graham has had a fantastic chance one-on-one so when you say that then I'd have to disagree with you very, very strongly. "


DL - Fair enough, just looking at the first-half it looked as though they were creating the chances and Arni cleared a couple off the line.

GA - " Did you not see ours cleared off the line as well?, so that's even-stevens. "


DL - Keiren Westwood pulled off a great save just before half-time to keep it at 0-0, got the penalty and Danny when he should have made it 2-0, a costly miss really.

GA - "You're just answering your own question really, you said to me that it's a fair result, well you ask the fans here if it's a fair result. They were booing their team half-way through the second-half and getting really frustrated. I thought that our gameplan worked terrifically and if Danny Graham slots that one in, and the lad gets sent off, which he should get sent off for the foul on Jeff Smith then the whole thing is different.

" I'm absolutely delighted though with the performance of my players here tonight, absolutely delighted. The effort, the commitment, and we've come to, 15,000 were there screaming abuse at us all the way through the game, backing their team to the hilt. I'd have to strongly disagree with your assessment there but that's me. Maybe I am hurting at the moment because I am hurting for my players because they put in a tremendous amount of effort and I'm absolutely delighted with their performance. "


DL - I'm not arguing with the effort, I thought the application was absolutely first-class and as you quite rightly say, one of the most consistent players, this is the problem with being the goalkeeper isn't it. You make one boobie as a goalkeeper and it can cost you, a centre-forward misses one and he has got the rest of the game to get over it.

GA - " We make mistakes as a team, nobody gets singled out, we've been putting our arms around Keiren and thanking him for the save he made at the end of the first-half. I'm not in the book of picking out players and saying that he has cost us this or he has cost us that. Keiren Westwood has been magnificent for this club, every day since I have been here he has been tremendous and I can't even remember half a dozen mistakes in a season. For a 22 or 23-year old goalkeeper that is awesome so we don't take any umbrance with him.

" It's a team thing, we miss chances at one end, we spill a shot for a soft goal at the other end and that's what changed the game ultimately. We're all together here, we make mistakes as a team and that's why the character that we have got in the team is all together. Everything that we achieve will be achieved through everybody, the staff at the back of it and all the players out there, every sixteen of them that was out there tonight. That's the way that we want it at the moment. "


DL - I could see the disappointment when the winning goal came in, I'm not sure whether the shot went straight in or whether Robinson did get a slight deflection but it just seemed a cross-shot.

GA - " I thought that their winning goal was an excellent goal, he (Paul Anderson) has cut in on his right-foot and it looks like he has shaped it into the far-post. Fair play to him, it was a terrific strike, a real cutting edge and a real bit of quality. I don't know if it took somebody on the way, It didn't look to be from where I was standing. We were a little bit under the cosh, the fans had got right behind the home side and that was a period where we needed to just defend a little bit better than we did for that period. Ultimately it has cost us the whole three points. "


DL - One of the things that we were saying in the first-half was that whilst Swansea appeared to have a little more of the possession, when we attacked on the counter-attack we looked very dangerous, with Bridge-Wilkinson firing just wide of the left-hand post.

GA - " Bridgey (Marc Bridge-Wilkinson) has had another shot in the second-half, I'm thinking that we have created so many opportunities when we've played as we've set out to do. That we'd cause them so many problems, we knew they'd pass it short, we knew they'd look pretty but they weren't really hurting us. Until the goal, in the second-half, up until that point, everything was from distance. Yes they had little bits and pieces fired across the box but you expect that.

" They threw caution to the wind, they went three at the back and five higher and two more upfront and they put us under a bit more pressure but we were quite comfortable, I thought that we were quite comfortable. A bit more composure and a bit more nous and I think that we would have seen it through, that's what we are disappointed about.


DL - As I say, 100% effort from everybody and you can't really fault that, Peter Murphy came on as well, what was the story with Paul Thirlwell - do you know the extent of his injury?

GA - " He (Paul Thirlwell) has got a calf injury, I don't know the extent of it but it was obviously bad enough to see him off the field which was a bit of a blow. We quickly reorganised that and to be fair to the lads that went in that area, I thought that they did very, very well. It's a blow when your captain gets injured after five minutes but we dealt with that and we got on with the game. We never made no bones about it and we put up a really decent performance.


DL - Looking at it from your point of view, I'll say bad luck Carlisle United, it's just when I looked at the game, possession wise I thought they had the majority of the ball, but as you quite rightly say they didn't really hurt us until that mistake.

GA - " I've come up here as a losing manager really, really upset for my players so maybe I am a little bit more fired up than you are at the moment. My players have created quite a lot of opportunities and the gameplan was to let them pass the ball and when we broke we broke quickly and caused them problems. I thought we did that so a little bit more quality with the finishing and we might have been out of sight. "


DL - Do you find that Carlisle respond better to a game where you are counter-attacking rather than taking the game initially to the opposition?

GA - " Different systems for different games, it was a perfect system for the game and up to 75-80 minutes it was working fantastically well so we got that right I think. Next week we've got to force the game a little bit more against Bristol Rovers at home and we'll try to do that. The system tonight though was a terrific one, 80 minutes it was working fantastically well, we've frustrated everybody in this ground and then we made an error which has ultimately cost us. "