John Ward - Radio Cumbria Interview

Last updated : 10 October 2007 By Thetashkentterror

John Ward
New United boss John Ward spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's Derek Lacey on Tuesday morning as he talked about the win over Millwall at the weekend in his first game in charge and the Johnstone's Paint Trophy tie against Chester tonight :


" It was an excellent performance against Millwall I think, that was first and foremost. All that I'd said to the players prior to the game was that as manager I have to take results but you have to be responsible for how you perform. Both went really, really good and if that is the standard now that they have set themselves then they have got to work very, very hard to maintain it.

" So a great weekend, it couldn't have gone better for myself or for anybody else in this football club but we have got to work hard to maintain it. There are a lot of good teams in this league and some really high scoring results on Saturday as you saw so we've got all to do see if we can stay where we are and see if we can improve it a bit. Prior to the nine goals in three games you maybe wondered if there were enough goals in the side.

" I think that is fair to say as well but they have dispelled that as well and put that to bed, so there are goals in this team. It's important that we keep trying to create because we are not going to get threes and fours very game. There are going to be tight matches, similar to the second-half I suppose on Saturday, can you find the space?, can you find the 1-0 wins and things like that? So there is a lot of work to be done but it is really encouraging now for me particularly to come and look at this squad and say - yes that is pretty good. So we need to work hard to maintain it.

" We talked at half-time about livening it up again in the second period, we thought that there would be a little bit of work being done in the Millwall dressing room of course. We said that why should that be the case that they come out and start quicker than us so let's get back on to them. The game stopped though for 15 minutes and then it starts all over again, it's another game if you like, another period of 45 minutes.

" You have to try to re-establish the supremacy that we had in the first period but it's difficult to do that. The second-half was probably more like a general 90 minutes that you are going to find in this league on a more regular occurrence. So that was good to watch us do that and deal with that, we were very thorough I thought in the second period. "



" We still threatened to score, Millwall had an opportunity or two but we handled it pretty well. So the two sort of half performances were very good for me to see. I saw us where it was pretty more even in the second period and I saw us on top where we were pretty ruthless, that's something that I'd like to have my team doing.

" We said that to Keiren (Westwood) and the back four that their job was to keep a clean sheet. If you do that then you know that you've won but if you can help us at the other end then that is terrific. Their pride though is to keep a clean sheet, that is what they are made to do, built to do and trained to do. To have that throughout 90 minutes was really good.

" I'm very much aware of Carlisle and the Johnstone's Paint trophy over the years, we were talking about that on Saturday with yourselves and the other guys. I said that - look I know important it is. It's the same to me, I want to win games and want to keep going. Again I'd be a fool to change and chop it around, we might make one or two little alterations and have a look at one or two things but nothing to weaken the side, more or less to give the squad games.

" It's a good squad though and if people like Paul Thirlwell and Kevin Gall are in there then you are not telling me that I am weakening anything. That's the good side of it and I want to win but we must also be very much aware that this is a team that is at the top of their league in the top three places, has got 20 points in their division and had a win on Sunday against Shrewsbury which is an excellent result for them.

" They'll be coming here trying to cause an upset, we've seen Morecambe do that. They have gone to bigger clubs than Carlisle and made sure they've won matches so any complacency by us will get punished if we do that. It's my job, and the players job to make sure that that is not there. "