Huddersfield manager Lee Clark spoke to BBC Radio Leeds and his club's official website ahead of his side's League One match against Carlisle at Brunton Park tomorrow, Clark looking for Town to bounce back after losing their last two games :
Lee Clark
" Two or three lads who were ill at Southampton have recovered, but another couple have since not been with us for the last few days because of it, so it is bit stop-start, but we are hopeful that they will all be there come New Year's Day against Carlisle. Hopefully they will have recovered enough to take the field or be involved.
" The travelling is not an excuse for us, we got a tremendous backing from the board to fly the team down to Southampton and back, so the flight is an hour and then you are home, so that is not an issue for us. We have been treated brilliantly and a couple of hours on the bus on the road to Carlisle, staying in a nice hotel again overnight to prepare for the game, so no excuses on that department, we have been looked after very, very well.
" All we can draw on is how we won the game at Carlisle earlier this season, and it was with a hell of a lot of hard work, because on both occasions Carlisle gave us very tough games. Every time we have been up against them home or away they have worked us unbelievably hard and made it tough for us. So, that has to be the starting point, the work ethic, the determination, the desire of everybody, no passengers at all and go from there.
" I am not too sure about them being rusty, whether it is rusty, you can look at it two ways, they can be rusty or they could have given players who have got little niggles who play throughout the season, it gives them a chance to recuperate. It gives the players the chance to have a bit of a breather, but it all depends on how late their games have been called off.
" If they have known quite early then they can change their training schedule to accommodate that. So, it is a tough one, it all depends, it is how they react on the day. It is the same scenario as Southampton and they ended up beating us by that scoreline (4-1), so you could say that the break they had has done them favours. "
" It is important to stabilise everything again and get back to not losing games. We have lost two on the bounce over the festive period, which has made it a bad Christmas period for us. But, what we have got to do is we have got to all stand up and be counted and front up the situation that has arisen over the last week and go to Carlisle and go head to head and take them on.
" That includes me, and I'm certainly not going to shy away from my duties and responsibilities. My faith in my players certainly hasn't diminished, but we have to find a way of getting back to where we were three or four games ago and maintaining that level of performance consistently. Nine defeats from 21 games so far is not good at all.
" We're still in a good position as we are in amongst it, but we expect to win all our home games and so the Boxing Day game is a disappointing one. It was a bit of a killer, because everyone knew how difficult the away game at Southampton would be; however, I didn't expect us to be beaten by that type of score-line down there. That was very disappointing. I've watched the DVD on my own and then again with the players and although it would have been fair to have been drawing at half-time, we gave an absolutely woeful goal away from a cheap set-play.
" Tom (Clarke) just cramped up so we took him off as a precaution. I couldn't take the risk that it would turn into something more serious and put him on the sidelines again, for myself and more so for the lad. After spending so much time in the treatment room with a long-term injury, putting him back in there would have been bad for his mental state.
" To be fair to him, I thought he did fantastically well during his time on the pitch considering it was his first game back in such a tough game and environment but once I got the indication that he was feeling his thigh I had to get him off the pitch. Unfortunately that restricted what I could do from the bench, because I had intended to get Jordan Rhodes on the pitch at some stage. Tom trained in the recovery session the day after the game without issue, so it was just cramp. That is only natural given the amount of time he was out. "