United manager Graham Kavanagh (GK) spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's James Phillips (JP) following Carlisle's 1-0 League One win at home to Bradford City, Kavanagh saying he was proud of players this evening:
JP
What is the number one emotion you felt at the end of that?
GK
Proud, proud in the sense that we have had a little bit of a difficult run and picking the players up and trying to come up with a formula that was going to be effective tonight was one that we have had to think long and hard about. But, the great reward tonight was a clean sheet and three points.
JP
It was a thrilling match in so many ways, very nervy towards the end and a lot of people getting in touch just to say how relieved they are, and I am sure you are amongst them?
GK
I am yeah, and I understand why. Everything we did in the first-half was about pressing the ball and keeping away from our goal. We knew because we had an extra number at our end of the pitch, which effectively meant we had a lesser number at the top end of the pitch that they were going to put balls in our box. It was a case of do we actually press the ball high or do we allow the ball to come in. Well, I didn’t want the balls coming into the box, and we had to try to be clever about how we slid, how we squeezed and how we denied them space.
Second-half, because of the position we are in in the league and the fact that we are desperate to get a win, we just dropped and dropped and dropped a little bit deeper. So, I wasn’t particularly pleased with that and I felt that there was a lot of really, really tired bodies. So, it was important that we got over the line and we managed to do it tonight and I am just really, really pleased as I say. So, it is a clean sheet and it is another start, how many times have we said that this season, but it is another start and it is hopefully the start of a run.
JP
Were they mentally as well as physically tired out there, it looked so difficult for them towards the end?
GK
Well, on Saturday speaking to the opposition manager [Peter Taylor], we were talking about tactics and talking about winning games and being on a run of form and stuff. He actually said that it is difficult winning games and it was something that sort of stuck with me a little bit, and I thought do you know what, he is actually dead right, it is difficult winning games.
It is difficult managing to get the three points because we have seen tonight and obviously over a number of months now, especially with Bradford, they never know when they are defeated, they work and they keep going and they keep pumping balls into your box and they keep asking questions of you and tonight we answered them.
JP
In terms of the game itself and in particular Bradford’s input into it, you could see they were a team who were struggling as well, but it sort of went in waves didn’t it, they seemed to grow a little bit and then shrink a little bit and vice versa. It was a game between two teams just desperately trying to get that win and thankfully it was Carlisle who got it?
GK
Yeah, but I don’t actually think that we looked like a team that was struggling tonight, I think we played a lot of good football. I think we got the ball into a lot of areas with a lot of energy, especially for 70 minutes and we actually got on the end of things. I thought Danny Redmond was outstanding, I thought Brad Potts and James Berrett were outstanding and Paul Thirlwell came back into the team and just showed exactly what we have been missing, his organisation and his intelligence to play the position.
We played the extra man because down there they battered us to be fair and we felt that if we positioned ourselves on the right side of the ball, whether we won the first one or we didn’t win the first one, that we would have the extra body in the middle of the pitch to pick the second ball up. It all fell into place tonight, I thought from one to fourteen, and all the lads in the dressing room, the buzz at this moment in time is fantastic. It is what we have got to try to build for, we have got the joy tonight but we have got to make sure come Saturday now we go back to back if we can.
JP
Talk us through the way that you did line up tonight, certainly caught me out, I looked at the players who were out and I thought 4-3-3, Chris Lumsdon knew straight after 7pm that it might be something a bit different just looking at the personnel, and indeed it was with Paul Thirlwell playing as a sort of Lothar Matthaus in your back three?
GK
Yeah, well it was actually a 3-4-3 we wanted to set up as. I was very conscious of stopping the supply as I said, so I wanted the two full-backs to engage their two wide men and get in their faces. The centre-back on the side of the ball to be a cover for that particular full-back if you like and then whether Aaron Mclean came into the hole or not, if he went in the hole one of the centre-halves went after him and we still had the two v one at the back, and if he flicked it on as James Hanson did a couple of times then we picked up the second balls.
I wanted to do all those things as far away from the goal as we possibly could and then we had to implement our style and get some forward play of our own if we could. But, I felt that with Danny’s cleverness to come off the line and Matty Robson’s ability to run on the outside with his energy and his legs, that sort of interchange would be effective. I thought on the other side Pascal Chimbonda could back support David Amoo who would get chances.
It was really important in the middle of the pitch that we matched their two and we didn’t, as Pottsy has done over the last few weeks, been the one who looked a threat in beyond. I was conscious of if that continually happened we would get done on the counter. So, we worked quite hard on it yesterday, we spoke in depth tonight about it on the tactics board and all the players said they understood, and they showed tonight that they did.
JP
What did you make of Lee Miller’s eventual winner, coming as early as it did in the 13th minute, what a goal?
GK
Fantastic, yeah, I mean we do quite a lot of work on set-pieces and it is always nice when they come off. We haven’t actually worked on them where he does an overhead finish, but it was really pleasing yeah, really pleasing. I am delighted for Lee because he has had a little bit of a tough time, but he has given it his all and you could see towards the end, as a few of them were, he was out on his feet. But, nothing comes from anything unless you are prepared to work extremely hard, as we did tonight.
JP
And it was the good and the bad of the overhead kicks, because even as he scored it we sort of said they can be brilliant or absolutely terrible, and Aaron Mclean down at the other end had a half go at one and you saw the other side of it?
GK
Yeah, I mean it is our fortune tonight that Lee gets the winner and it gives us the win. So, we are just pleased to now put a sort of a little bit of a bad run behind us, get a win on the board and hopefully that will give the players big confidence.
JP
I bet like us you probably thought that it was going to be wrapped up by David Amoo sprinting through, a brilliant turn made entirely of his own work but he just couldn’t quite finish it and make the game a bit more comfortable?
GK
Yeah, I mean David has that ability, you get tight to him and you are at peril because of his strength and his power, and then once he gets from you over three yards you are not going to really catch him. You don’t get tight to him and you let him turn and you let him run at you and that can cause sometimes an even bigger problem.
But, he sort of ended up running out of ground and I think he was hoping to get by the keeper but the full-back got back into cover and all credit to him. So, yeah, there were moments and opportunities, Lee had a header after that, I am actually because my emotions are still running high I am forgetting to think about the rest of the chances we had, but, just really pleased.
JP
Danny Redmond, I think we have seen a lot of his quality today, given a long-term chance with him and the team to sort of understand him, he is the sort of player you could almost build a team around the way he plays inbetween the lines. Almost in a David Silva sort of style, on the half turn and turning balls round the corner, I am just trying to think of a relative comparison even at League One level, pile the pressure on him?
GK
Well, let’s get it straight right, he is not playing in Wigan’s team and we are calling him David Silva. Now, listen, the kid has got ability, there are no two ways about it, he is 23, tonight I think it was his league debut in English football, he has obviously played up at Hamilton. I have seen quite a bit of him and I really, really fancy him. I think he has got all the attributes I would want in a football player, he is brave, he takes it in well, technically he is very good.
He is not the biggest but he is brave, but it his first game. We have seen it before in the past where we as a club get carried away with performances of players and it is unfair and it is unjust. So, he has done well tonight but that is all he has done, he has done well tonight for one game and he has got to do well over the course of the remaining time he is here.
JP
What about the weekend now, what do you need to get, do you need to try to get just another of those clean sheets or do you go to Crawley thinking this is a good chance for us to go there and sort out that away form and get a win?
GK
I suppose good question. I don’t know, it is a case of we will have a gameplan for them. I think that is more of a difficult pitch down there, it is not a passing pitch most definitely. It has been very, very heavy and it cuts up a lot so it doesn’t lend itself to a slick style of passing. But, in saying that we play a particular way and we will have to try to continue to play that way.
But, I think the foundation of playing tonight was I said to the players before the game that six players were going to win us this game and it would be the keeper, the three centre-backs and the two central midfield players in front. If they could keep a compact unit then we will get a chance in the game, whether we take it or not remains to be seen but obviously a clean sheet was vital and it worked tonight. I think if I had gone the other way and said the top four/top six would win us the game then that hasn’t been working. So, I took a different viewpoint and luckily, as I say, it came off.
JP
With the away form as it is how much of a relief amongst the other reliefs is it that you have got the home form back on track this evening, because it is now seven wins in ten at home which isn’t bad going at all?
GK
Yeah, you are brilliant for stats aren’t you, you keep giving me stats all the time and I am afraid of the stats you are going to give me away from home. It is not a case of paying more attention to home and less to away, it is very much the next game is the most important game. Our next two games happen to be away and we are going to apply ourselves with the intention of going to win them. Certainly we are going to go with the intention of keeping a clean sheet if we can, and if they give us that intelligence and that work-rate tonight then we will give ourselves a good chance.
JP
Are you any closer to giving deals or at least talking about deals potentially over the weekend with any of the trialists that you have got in?
GK
Well, John Nixon is here, I have got another seven coming in that is going to bring us up to the fifty. So, I am looking forward to those, you will have one a week, one a day rather for the next seven days and we will definitely hit the fifty mark before the end of the season, and we will have party when that happens.
JP
Is there anything you can tell us though, in seriousness?
GK
We think, well we have agreed a deal with Nacho Novo, it is about getting his clearance coming through. He has obviously been playing in Scotland and I am not really sure to be honest with the timeframe on that but I would imagine he will be available for the next game.
So, that is pleasing, I think all the players I have signed up to now have been generally young and inexperienced and he gives us a know-how and a knowledge and a composure that I am hoping rubs off on the players, and hopefully it will excite the fans. He has had a very good career, he has scored goals wherever he has played and he brings intelligence and cleverness to the team, so it is a new option for us.
JP
Derek Riordan, anything going with that one still?
GK
No, that one is dead I think, that one is dead.