United boss Greg Abbott (GA) spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's James Phillips (JP) following Carlisle's 1-1 extra-time draw and subsequent 4-2 penalty shootout victory away to Oldham in the first round of the Carling Cup, Abbott suggesting the Blues might be able to win the competition this season :
JP
You are through into the second round of the League Cup and what drama as well getting there?
GA
Yeah, it is never an easy ride is it with us in the cups but I think we won the Johnstone Paints last year didn't we from going through the first round on penalties, so we might win the League Cup and do the same this year, you never know do you? But, in the end important to get through, important to get in the hat, nice to get a decent cup run, good to get a victory, good to get a victory under our belt and start our season off, and I thought from the second-half onwards I thought we did that.
JP
In particular after half-time what a reaction you got from the players after the first 45?
GA
Yeah, I think there is a little bit of timidness, I don't know, fear, within the group at the moment for some reason. Every day we fill the players with confidence and give them the feelgood factor, but they are going out there and we don't think at the minute, certainly the first-half and after Saturday, doing themselves justice. They really are a good grouip and they have got to have to that belief and hopefully tonight......... I thought the second-half was terrific and I thought our fitness levels were fantastic throughout the game and we should have probably won the game in normal time with the play that we had second-half, but we didn't.
We could have won it in extra-time but so could they to be fair with the chances, but I thought over the balance we looked really, really strong and we have got through, which is once it goes to extra-time and penalties you are just thinking about getting through. Maybe the quality of football goes a little bit in that period. but we have got there and it is important we have got a victory under our belts for me.
JP
What do you put behind that sort of change? Was it just down to the formation change or was it down to what you said and sort of the reaction you got from the players as people rather than just in the terms of the tactics?
GA
I am not so sure we did change the formation, you know we did, I think the attitude of the players, we told them to go out and start competing, start rolling your sleeves up and going man to man and head to head with people. Like Saturday, if you give people far too much time and space in this league and if you pressurise people they become ordinary players, if you give them time they look really good players.
But, I thought in the second-half we had an edge to our play, it wasn't a nice dressing room at half-time, because you can't let that go on and we are not going to let it go on for long. We want players that can go on and compete, we want players to play nice football but they have to go out there and really put the opposition under pressure and I don't think we did that in the first-half, the second-half was much, much better.
JP
What were you thinking at half-time after seeing that?
GA
Well, you think you have got to do something about it to put it right, we did change the formation, we got high players high and we got midfield players tackling and winning second balls, and we got the two wide players into the game a lot more. I thought that certainly down the left-hand side Andy Welsh and Matty Robson looked a good partnership.
Down the right really comfortable, steady, Tom (Taiwo) has done a smashing job for us at right-back and J-P (Jon-Paul McGovern) has found a bit of magic for the goal. So, I just thought we looked a little bit more in control of the game and we caused them a lot more problems, put them under a lot more pressure all over the pitch and we ran harder and tackled harder and fought for the ball a lot better than we did in the first period.
JP
I bet you expect to get a knock now from Andy Welsh and Rory Loy demanding to be in for Saturday's trip to Bury?
GA
I'm not bothered who knocks on the door as long as the team that plays wins games, they can all knock on the door and be upset, but in the first-half they didn't give me much reason to be knocking on anything. But, in the second-half there are a lot of people have put themselves in the picture for Saturday, so that is what we want, we want everybody, we have got a wafer-thin squad now with the couple of injuries we have just picked up. So, everybody needs to be competing and everybody needs to be ready because we are going to need to use all the players.
JP
What a reaction from Tom Taiwo from what was a bit of a disappointment for him at the weekend?
GA
Yeah, he was safety first as well wasn't he, he had a couple of chances to go back to the keeper (Adam Collin), learnt from Saturday which is great, you don't mind people making mistakes as long as they learn from them. They will happen at this level in football but he has given a typical Tom Taiwo display, he never let anybody down, competed for everything, and listen, he has played there before and I said to him before not to make any excuses because he has played in that position and I know he can do it. He knows he can do it and he has done a sterling job there for what is a slightly different thing that he has been used to for the past couple of years.
JP
And after one chance on target at the weekend, and I think it was sort of one on target, one other chance in the first-half, you peppered them in the second-half, how do you make sure you carry that through now into this weekend?
GA
I think that will give them confidence, it will give them a lot of confidence that, we have already said that you have to take all the plus points. I said up to half-time, Saturday and up to half-time we had given them all what we didn't think they were doing right. But, after that I said that that is done now, forgotten, let's talk about the good things we did in the second-half and through the extra-time period and the penalties, and let's build on that. The season starts now, we have just got through to the next round, if we can get a result at Bury which won't be easy because I think they have beaten Coventry 3-1, then listen, it puts us in much better shape than it was at twenty to five on Saturday.
JP
And if England ever get to another stage in the World Cup tournament where they get to a penalty shootout, do you think they can borrow Adam Collin for one of those shootouts? He is unbelievable in them.
GA
Yeah, when Matty misses his you think it might just be not our night, but the big fella covers a big piece of the goal doesn't he and he has come up trumps again and terrific. Listen, it is important to us that we can now get a bit of cup success to go along with a league programme, but momentum and confidence are the two things that we need to start building up now, and that won't do us any harm tonight.
JP
And just a final one and purely on Bury, what do you need to take from this game and what do you need to do right that perhaps you didn't at the start of the last two matches?
GA
Make sure we pressurise them and take the game to Bury and not sit back and give them time and space, we need to get right after them.
JP
And what sort of game do you expect from them?
GA
A difficult one by the look of their result tonight.