Ipswich defender Carlos Edwards spoke to the East Anglian Daily Times ahead of his side's Capital One Cup third round tie against Carlisle at Brunton Park this evening, Edwards hoping Town can quickly turn their form round after a 6-0 hammering at Blackpool on Saturday:
“We have to bounce back quickly, it is only a cup game but we have to get our winning mentality and hard-to-beat mentality back. If you look back at the first two league games, it was very difficult for opposing teams to get anything from us. We just have to stick together as a group. There is no point sulking or dwelling – it has already gone. As a group, we need to regroup in a positive way.
“"We have to move on and that starts against Carlisle. Hopefully we can get a win and put in a good performance to get us back on track ready for the next league game. Every time you win in the cup, you progress and that sets you up in the league because it gives you an extra buzz. You do take that positive into a league game. We have Huddersfield at home after Carlisle and we need to shrug that 6-0 defeat off and look forward to the next two games.”
Meanwhile Town boss Paul Jewell commented to his club's official website:
“Saturday night wasn’t an enjoyable one obviously but you have to dust yourself down and go again and that’s what we will do. We can’t change what happened at Blackpool. We can learn from the mistakes – we have to learn – you learn about certain individuals but we have to move on, and that means showing a positive reaction against Carlisle.
"It will be a difficult game, we know that but when you have lost a game like we did on Saturday, you want the opportunity as soon as possible to go out there and put on a performance. We will give Carlisle the utmost respect. We have scouted them twice – once since the draw and then on Saturday."
In team news for the Tractor Boys, who have stayed over in the north-west of England and trained at Fleetwood since their match at Blackpool, they have two players unavailable. Ipswich having left those players back in Suffolk as they brought 19 players with them for their six-day trip away from Portman Road, 16-year old midfielder Byron Lawrence being the unlucky man out as he didn’t make the substitutes bench against Blackpool.
The pair left at home being teenage right-back Elliott Hewitt who is missing after undergoing hip surgery in the summer, while Senegalese midfielder Guirane N'Daw, who joined Town on a season long deal loan from French club Saint-Etienne last Friday, has still not received his international clearance papers in order to play. Finally, on the books at Ipswich but not featuring at the moment is 31-year old striker Nathan Ellington who seems to have been frozen out of first-team action despite having one year left to run on his Town contract.
It's been a long time since the two sides have played each other at Brunton Park, infact they have only met four times in Cumbria at all. The last of those coming in the old Divsion One in that 1974-75 season when Carlisle won 2-1 in mid-January thanks to goals from Frank Clarke and Joe Laidlaw, while Trevor Whymark found the net for Town in front of 13,054 spectators.
United meanwhile having beaten Ipswich at Brunton Park the three other times they faced each other too, all of those victories coming in the mid to late 60s in the old Second Division courtesy of 3-1, 2-1 and 4-1 scorelines. The league being the mainstay of action between the clubs as bar the four reverse fixtures at Portman Road, cup games have only come around twice with Carlisle losing twice in Suffolk in the FA Cup, 2-0 in February 1967 and 3-2 in January 1979. Finally, as far as current connections go there are no former United players in the Ipswich squad, which has 19 players in it tonight as follows:
Goalkeepers - Arran Lee-Barrett and Scott Loach.
Defenders - Jack Ainsley, Luke Chambers, Aaron Cresswell, Damien Delaney, Carlos Edwards (c) and Tommy Smith.
Midfielders - Josh Carson, Andy Drury, Luke Hyam, Byron Lawrence, Massimo Luongo, Lee Martin and Ryan Stevenson.
Attackers - Michael Chopra, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, Ronan Murray and Jason Scotland.
The referee for this evening's match is Scott Mathieson from Stockport and he will be assisted down the lines by Dave McCallum from Wallsend and Tony Peart from Northallerton in North Yorkshire. Meanwhile the fourth official is Scott Oldham from Poulton-le-Fylde, near Blackpool. The officials perhaps also responsible for overseeing 30 minutes of extra-time if the scores are level after 90 minutes, and then a penalty shoot-out if the two sides still can't be separated after 120 minutes of action.
*Footnote - should United make it through to the third round, which is neither seeded nor regionalised, then the Blues will be involved in the draw for that stage of the competition which will take place after the completion of the Northampton Town v Wolverhampton Wanderers tie that is live on SKY Sports on Thursday evening.