Paul Thirlwell - Radio Cumbria Interview

Last updated : 31 October 2008 By Thetashkentterror

Blues midfielder Paul Thirlwell
United skipper Paul Thirlwell spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria on Friday evening about Carlisle's dire run of form at the moment, Thirlwell saying that there is no split in the United camp :


" Us as players, the gaffer (John Ward) said it all there, from a players' perspective we just want to go out there and do the best that we can on a weekend. We are going out there as best prepared as we can, the gaffer and his staff aren't doing anything differently this year to what they did last year, we are just finding ourselves in a run of bad form.

" We are not hiding behind that, we are not trying to make excuses, the team isn't playing as well as it can at the minute but every team has these spells. What are you going to do?, we can sit and hide and not want to go out there, not want to play football, but I think that the fans and everyone knows that we have got players who can produces the goods on a Saturday. That is what we have to get back to doing.

" There is no split in the camp, you are always going to get people saying that, everybody knows that, I read the press, the Sunday papers or whatever. You pick up things, if Manchester United don't win five or six games in a row, they draw a couple, there are always problems in house or whoever it may be. I think that everyone just likes to look for a problem sometimes that isn't there.

"To be honest I can only speak for the players, and obviously what I say on the staff, the gaffer will speak for his staff. We are absolutely fine though, we come in with smiles on our faces, or as much as we can in the current run we are in. We are working hard and we are just looking to win football matches for ourselves and for the club. "



" I think that the players should get the responsibility as much as anyone to be honest. The gaffer and his staff can only do so much, they can prepare us, they can prepare us for the team that we are going to be playing against. They can put sessions on and you can have the best plan in the world. Once you go over the white line though it is down to the players and we have to take as much responsibility as anybody else for the last month or six weeks of the results that we have had.

" We are not suddenly a bad team though, we all know that we won four and drew one out of the first five and we were getting all the accolades for being a good team then. You can't get over-excited about winning those games, and equally so this run has gone on too long now. We are looking just to do the right things though and get out of it in the same way that we started losing games.

" I am coming on really well, I was out there, me and Bridgey (Michael Bridges) were out there with Dolly (Neil Dalton) today and we progressed really well. We were doing all our running and turning and I think that the pair of us aren't too far away.

" I think that you have to look to the senior players on a run like this, I was involved in a worse run when I was at Sunderland. We lost about seventeen or so when we were in the Premiership and morale does get low, but I think that you look to the more senior players as I did then. Obviously they had been in runs like that before, they had been on winning runs, they had been on losing runs.

" I think that it is just a case of do what you did to get you to where you are, i.e. League One, we are not changing anything from what we did last year when we were on a fantastic run, especially at home. We are not looking to change anything now, albeit apart from the results. "



" Again I was watching the lads today at training and you would think that we had won ten on the spin in terms of the way they react and talk, and about how enthusiastic they are about training and how much they want the ball. They could easily go away and hide but they are not, and that is what we are looking for. We just need to take that training form on to the pitch and I am sure that sooner rather than later that is what is going to happen.

" I don't think that there is any defeatism in the squad. I think that situations are different, possibly, I can't speak for Paul Jewell and the situation he had at Derby, but you are talking Premier League players who are on ridiculous amounts of money. It is not like our situation where we have lads who want to go out there and work hard, no-one is thinking or feeling that if they don't get picked one week then that is it and they have to leave the club.

" That it is not the way it is at our place, last year we won however many games it was at home and you didn't see many lads leaving in the summer thinking that they were bigger and better than Carlisle. Like we are now, we are in a bad run but the lads want to roll their sleeves up and crack on and get the club out of the situation that it is in.

" I'd just like the supporters to stay with us like they have been. I heard the gaffer's interview before there, I thought that they were fantastic on Tuesday night. They stayed with the lads from start to finish, I think that we started the game well then Hartlepool go on their first attack and they score a goal. That is just the way that it seems to be going for us at the minute, but I hope the supporters just keep doing what they have been doing away from home.

" I am sure that they will come in their numbers tomorrow and support the lads. That is all that we can ask for, but obviously us as players and us as the gaffer and the staff, we have to give them something to cheer about. As long as they know that we are giving 100% then I am sure that they will stay fully behind us, and that is exactly what we are trying to do with the added bonus of three points. "