Coventry boss Steven Pressley spoke to his club's official website ahead of his side's League One match against Carlisle at Brunton Park tomorrow afternoon, Pressley wanting 'optimum levels' from the Sky Blues again:
“The one thing you must look to do is play at your optimum levels every week, and if you do that you have got a chance of winning football games. Thus far this season the players have performed at really high levels and we demand that, not just on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon but every day on the training ground. It has to become the culture at this club that in every training exercise we play to win at the optimum levels, and the same has to go for the weekend. It has to be our culture, we have to adopt it and the players have been hugely receptive to it.
“One thing I must stress is that there will be no complacency here, I spoke to Callum Wilson recently on that. I have spoken to other players on that, that one of our big strengths is the way we apply our pressing game and that allows us to play, and as soon as we start believing we are a better team than we are then we are in trouble. That will be stressed to the players over the coming days and weeks ahead that we must maintain and improve the levels because I think we can get better.
“I don’t want anybody to believe that we are a better team than we actually are, because we have got so much to prove this season. Our performances have been very high but so far we have achieved nothing, so we will only achieve that by the hunger remaining and our team improving over the course of the season. That is the most important thing for me that we have a really hungry team that always want to improve, and there will be no complacency certainly while I am the manager of this club.
“We have watched Carlisle against Bradford and Blackburn, they obviously had a terrific result against Blackburn and had out a young side, maybe not as young as our own side, but they are a young side. With young sides you get inconsistency and they performed very well and got a result against Blackburn, and then had a disappointing performance and result at the weekend."
“But, Greg Abbott is a very good manager, he has got great experience in this league, he has guided them through highs and lows already in the past and he will do it again. So, we need to be absolutely ready for them this weekend because they have proved that they can get results against good sides, and we need to make sure that we maintain our levels again.
“Due to finances we will be travelling on the day, we will travel up again and prepare how we have done for the other games. As yet it hasn’t affected our performances too badly, our performance against Leyton Orient, when we were on the bus a long time that day due to roadworks and various things, but we got off the bus and the players were magnificent. So, as long as we go with that mentality and look again for no excuses then I am very confident in the group.
“Ideally we will reel in the ten point penalty as soon as possible, but we can’t get overly concerned about it. We have got 44 games to do that and in the space of a week you can gain nine points, so things can change very, very quickly. The most important thing for us is that we just focus on the next game, and if we start looking any further than that then we are in trouble.
“We look to Carlisle and we look to make sure that we maintain the standards. If we do that every week then we have got a chance, but if we start looking at the fixtures beyond that and saying that we have got a good run of fixtures, they are only a good run of fixtures if you win them. So, next game, and that is all that concerns ourselves. The way the younger players have gone about it and their response has given us great hope.”