United manager Graham Kavanagh (GK) spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's James Phillips (JP) following Carlisle's 4-1 League One defeat away to bottom of the table Notts County, Kavanagh first apologising to the fans for the performance:
JP
What do you take out of today?
GK
Very little. I have got to apologise to the fans to start with because that wasn’t a performance anywhere near good enough. I am sure you are going to ask me why, but I haven’t got the answer for you to be perfectly honest. A little bit in shock with just the way we played, the energy of the group.
I actually thought we started really well but we just didn’t get a goal, once the first goal went in I actually thought we retreated into our shells, which was very, very worrying. We didn’t recover and it wasn’t acceptable, we have had a frank and honest discussion, they got told a few home truths, and as we have done a number of occasions this season we are going to start again.
JP
I know you have had to do that, but there are a lot of really unhappy fans. Your start, I am sure they wanted to hear that from you, you are clearly very upset and annoyed by it, where does a performance like that come from against a team who you had on the rack for the first half an hour or so?
GK
To be honest, honest to God I don’t know. I think we have played well in the last four or five games, I think we have been unlucky and we have been in games, we have competed. At times we have lacked that cutting edge, well we have created but we haven’t scored, to put the ball in the net. I felt today that the first goal would be vital, we had a very good meeting or I thought it was a very good meeting this morning at half eleven with the players.
I told them what was expected in the next ten games, and today was the first time I looked and realised the youthfulness of the group and how it is actually impacting on the situation if you like. Obviously, we have got a lot of senior players missing and that is not an excuse, that is just a reality, it is a fact.
But, when you are asking kids to do men’s jobs, they have done it in the last four weeks and they have convinced me that they can continue to do it, but they weren’t capable of doing it today. Then you had Sean O’Hanlon coming back who looked way off the pace because he did look like he lost three weeks of fitness, and it was just an all-round poor performance.
JP
What do you do now? It has taken you into the bottom four, you are in those relegation places and it is a place that nobody wanted to be, least of all you I am sure?
GK
We can sit and we can cry and we can worry about it and we can feel sorry for ourselves, or we can be men and we stand up and be counted. We come in and we go again and we roll our sleeves up and we do all the things that are horrible and ugly about football. Which is hard work, work-rate, tempo, intelligence, aggression, put demands on ourselves and each other and accept that when we put them on ourselves it is not a pressure, it is what needs to be done. I go away and I will look at this DVD, I mean it will be like watching a horror show to be honest.
But, I am going to have to upbeat and I am going to have to come in on Monday and have a game-plan for Tuesday. We haven’t got time to dwell on it, the good thing with the game on Tuesday is that we do have a chance to put it right, or at least try to put it right. I have asked the players there if they are prepared to do the work and the answer is yes, but I think the talking has stopped now, it is action. Actions are bigger than words and if they are going to do it, then let’s go and do it.
JP
Anyone who knows you as a player and as a bloke can see that that is not a Graham Kavanagh performance, with the players you have got, the limitations with youth and with injuries, can you get Graham Kavanagh performances between now and the end of the season to save the club in League One?
GK
Well, first of all I hope so, that is for a start. I am getting all the right feedback but again, they are only words now. We do have a very young team and I understand at this moment that a lot of them have never been through this, a lot of loan players are finding it now…………. I had a conversation this morning with them at the meeting and I said look, whatever happens, whether it be good, bad or indifferent, the impact that a relegation can have on a career and on a season takes a long while to get over.
It has an impact and a lot of clubs who have been good enough and fortunate enough to allow us to influence their players and give them the opportunity to get minutes on the pitch, will have decisions to be made on those players also. Because, they think did they handle it, how did they cope in pressure situations, will they be able to do that at our club, and if the answer is no then they will have to move on.
So, we just again need to understand exactly where we are, and where we are at this moment in time is the bottom four. To improve the first thing that has to happen is hard work and if they are not going to give us that then it is an absolute waste of time. So, they said they are going to give us it, they have given us it in the majority of games. I can only take them on face value on how they train and that is how I have picked my teams all the way through, and we go again, that is all we can do.
JP
Teams struggling do fade the same as teams who are struggling things start to go right, they do build and you saw that on both sides of the pitch today. Notts County grew unbelievably by the end of the game?
GK
Yeah, well we got deeper and deeper and I can’t for the life of me understand why. We got deeper and deeper, every time the ball went into the full-back areas we got exposed and the full-backs let crosses come into the box. Brad Potts is running forward of the pitch and not holding the middle of the pitch, which is exposing us, and the two wide men weren’t prepared to do the work going back the way and we weren’t getting any quality into Lee Miller.
So, it wasn’t any one area that caused us a problem, it was a whole level and regardless of how we set about in the system it affected us. So, that is a huge concern, but you have seen some very good Notts County players who obviously this season have been struggling for confidence and you can see now why they are in the position in the table and how it has affected them. But, once they got the first and second goal today they played with a freedom and they showed their quality.
We did the complete opposite, we didn’t do exactly what we have been doing over the last few weeks. We weren’t together, compact or aggressive, we let people run beyond us, we didn’t match their work-rate and effort. If that a slight on me then fair enough I will take that on the chin. But, I won’t accept it and they know that and they have been told.
JP
They looked bereft at the start of it and by the end they were playing back-heels and champagne football, I know you won’t have liked that obviously but is that a message to your own players that if they just get the basic things right then they will grow in confidence, it will come back even within the confines of one game let alone over these next nine/
GK
Yeah, it is difficult, I mean it is very easy for us to sit and talk about it, and I know confidence is something that we all struggle with at times in our careers. But, the one thing that you have to do when you are struggling is match and out-work the opposition at least. Then you will get the break of the ball, you will get a little bit of rub of the green, it just happens.
That is our game-plan now, it is going to have to be, forget about tactics, forget about systems, I need eleven players in the team who I know will work hard, or at least I think will work hard. If we can build and it is a case of now not looking a game ahead, it is a case now of looking for a 45 minute performance, get that and then try to build the second-half. If we can build and grow on that I am hoping we get enough to stay in the league.
JP
You said coming into this game that you still wanted to try to get a couple of players in if you could, has that become paramount now with what you have seen today, is it possible, is it close?
GK
We have been doing some work on getting players in, but I mean we are obviously already overloaded. When I took the job I didn’t realise the impact the lack of experience would have on us in terms of the senior players, to have five senior players out injured at the moment is crippling us if I am being honest.
So, I get loan players and two of them will have to sit out, I am not bothered about that because I want a successful and winning team and I want to do whatever we need to do to make sure we stay in the league. But, as I have said already, it is difficult getting the right players to come in. Are they going to come in and be prepared to fight, do they understand what they are coming into.
Loan players generally aren’t playing at their clubs, loan players want to come in and obviously play and they will have a style which they think suits them best. Right at this moment to get the player to fit the style of play we are going to need to play, which is a hard-working, gritty physical performance is difficult. But, we are going to have to try to do it in the next five days.
JP
Who do you turn to at this stage being a young manager in this position with everything that is going on, with things that you thought you had cracked going wrong again, who do you turn to and how are you coping with this situation?
GK
Well, you have got to just manage haven’t you. I have got a great wife who obviously supports me, I have got great staff who are very much in it with me. They care as passionately as much as I do, John Nixon and Andrew Jenkins have been different class. They understand, I think they understand anyway and they have shown me up to this point that it has been a difficult job.
It was a very difficult start and we hit the ground running. The problem I said to the players and the biggest thing I want them to take from what we said after the game was, regardless of where they are next season, regardless of whether they are with us or whoever, every single day in football matters.
We threw a few days away at the start of the season and it is very, very difficult to say well we will throw everything into the last ten games or the last five games and that will be alright. It is costing us now and those points would have been invaluable, we haven’t got them so I, as I say, need to look over the next 24 hours, come up with a game-plan, come up with a solution to this and see if we can move this forward.
JP
It is maybe not the ideal day to ask you this one, but are you confident that you and the team have enough and will have enough come the end of the season?
GK
Yeah, listen, I am the leader of the ship and I have to believe that. I have to make sure that the players, and they have to be fair to them 90% of the time have given me their absolute maximum. I think for a lot of the games this season they have given me everything they have and a little bit more, which has been brilliant. But, we have always had to work for every single thing we have got, nothing has come easy and nothing will come easy in the next nine games.
But, that doesn’t mean that we can feel sorry for ourselves, we have got to just dust ourselves off. It is a huge defeat, there will be a big mental scar left from today and it is how we cope on Tuesday night. The fans again were singing at the end, which they were just amazing and as I say, I can only apologise to them who have made the trip and have paid their good hard-earned money. That wasn’t acceptable, but I will try to put it right.