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JP
How do you feel about that one?
GA
Very unhappy to be honest, very disappointed and very unhappy, angry, all of those things. I don't know, it is a difficult one today, it is one of them that you find it very hard to explain why and how from where we have been and how we have been doing to produce a first 45 minutes as inept as that.
I am not sure what I am to be honest at the minute, it has taken a while for me to just have a think about it and have a walk up and decide what the best thing is to say and what to say and how to say it. I have had ten minutes and I am just disappointed and upset to be honest.
JP
You say it is difficult to explain, can you try for the fans on the way home?
GA
No, I mean how do we explain when we don't make any tackles, we don't press the game, we don't close people down, we don't win headers. We don't do things that come for free and that is the basics of football, compete against the eleven people you are at. If you don't do that, you can talk about systems and you can talk about substitutions and all sorts of things but if you don't roll your sleeves up and go and have a go it is very difficult to win any football matches.
We didn't roll our sleeves up and we didn't get out of the starting blocks at all in the first-half and that is really worrying. But it is more worrying for some of the players because they are going to find it is their careers as well, it is everybody's career, my career, Dennis Booth's career, their careers. It was just so disappointing and from the last six games or seven games that we have played, where did that come from, and it is very hard for me to come up here and try to offer an explanation.
JP
Can you put your finger on anything as to explain where a performance like that does come from?
GA
No, I mean we had the two boys Tom (Taiwo) and Richard (Keogh) were ill, they had a go, they weren't right. Tom has struggled to get his energy and Richard, he couldn't do any more after half-time. Then you think, well it is not an excuse because there are another other nine out there when we make the substitutions at half-time, which they got there as far as they could.
We just, I don't know, you are looking at players to make tackles and take hold of the game and show responsibility. We dropped off, it was like a testimonial at times, this is League One, this is Third Division, third tier football. The one commodity I would like to think is that we go out there and compete and roll our sleeves up and tackle and press and play the game at a tempo, and we didn't first-half.
JP
What have you been and what will you be saying to your players about that then?
GA
Well in my way the dressing-room stays private. I have told them what I think of that and I have told them what I think of preparation and the run they have been on and how we have got there and what we have been doing and the sort of things we have done. Today they have let themselves down and as a manager they have let me down and we all stand in it together as a very disappointed group now probably feeling sorry for ourselves.
Because that is the way I feel at the moment, I feel sorry for myself that they haven't gone out there and played the way I have asked them to play and the way they have been playing. But that is me, I have got to stand up now and be counted, as have the players, they have got to stand up and be counted as well. Because there were a lot of performances out there that weren't up to the plate.
JP
There were 1,500 people more watching Oxford versus Barrow today than there were here at Brunton Park. Is it really disappointing because it was very flat wasn't it, did in a way the fans not help that?
GA
Let's not make excuses about whether it is flat or not, there were 3,000 at Morecambe the other night and we weren't flat, and we competed, we didn't play great football but we competed. We will have played in front of less and we will have played in front of more, I am not going to use the lack of atmosphere as an excuse for that, I really am not. Because I don't think anybody would want me to come up here and say it is the fans' fault or the crowd's fault, it was our fault, simple as that, my fault and the players' fault, simple as.
JP
But talking about the crowd, five defeats in nine here in the league this season, there is maybe some of an argument for why they are not coming at the moment.
GA
Yeah, of course there is, I wouldn't come and watch that first-half. But we need them, it is a chicken and egg thing, we need them, we need the revenue, we need the extra fans. But we have got to produce performances better than that, it is as simple as that. I am not trying to hide from the fact, I am open with that, I am honest enough with that. If you were a fan of Carlisle at the minute and you had seen that first-half there then you wouldn't be too pleased.
JP
What about the striking situation? The goals just aren't coming again at the moment are they?
GA
Well no, but some of the quality into them, you are looking at wide players who have been flying and they have not produced today again. Vincent (Pericard) has held the ball up, I thought Vincent has been probably one of the better ones out of the group today who has held it up reasonably well. He is waiting for people to get round him, he is occupying defenders.
But we didn't find any quality, we didn't find any desire, Joe (Anyinsah) has got in a great goalscoring position and not converted, that puts you under pressure. It is a problem, not scoring is always going to be a problem, always going to put pressure on your back four. But it is not the chances we missed, it is the whole approach to the first-half that is disappointing and we are never going to make chances playing like that because the determination and desire wasn't there.
JP
Just on facts though, Vincent Pericard one in six, (Scott) Dobie none in eight, (Richard) Offiong none at all. Does a lot of it come down to the service, is it too easy to blame the strikers?
GA
Listen, we are a team and we have got 12 goals or something in the last four of five games. The goals have been coming, it doesn't matter where they come from. I am not pointing the finger at strikers today where defenders haven't headed it, they haven't closed people down, they didn't defend the goal. The goal was an absolute awful one to concede, we have not been brave enough to clear our lines and we were too weak. So let's not, I think it is unfair today to pinpoint the blame at the strikers, it is a collective not good enough all round.
JP
Just on yourself, there were boos, there were a few shouts at the end of the game, how does that make you feel?
GA
Not great, not great, nobody likes criticism do they. But you accept it, you understand it, you get on with it. Danny (Wilson) said some nice words to me at the end of the game but I am going to be brave, I will be brave, I have to be brave. The players have to be braver and we have to get back at it Monday and we have got a game Tuesday that is even tougher than today and we have to pick ourselves up off the floor, because that is where we are at the moment.
JP
And you have mentioned with the players that their jobs are on the line with this sort of thing, and of course yours is as well. Is that sort of thing impressed on them that they are playing for their futures here?
GA
Well it should be because we are aren't we, every game you play you are always three games away from the sack and you are always three games away from being in the top part of the table. Three wins is massive but three defeats is crude is rude. So, listen, if they don't understand it they are going to find out pretty quickly on what this game is all about. It doesn't have sympathy for anybody, I will tell you that now, it is a brutal industry.
JP
And you have come back impressively this season from what some people felt was the brink, are you confident that you can get what you need out of them ahead of Tuesday now?
GA
I have to be, that is the only way I can be now. I am already starting to fight again now because you are looking at the game and to be honest I didn't see where a goal was coming from. We needed a bit of luck, we needed a goal off a tram-tick if you like, we needed something to happen for us because we were simply running out of ideas today.
But what I have got to do is impress on the players that if we start games like that it doesn't half take a hell of a lot to rescue it and turn it round. You can't start as sloppily and as poorly as that and then just pick your game up in a half period. It is a whole mental approach to the game and our mental approach and our determination was woeful today.
JP
Does everything have to come from you? You talk about these ideas that you need for that goal, for whatever, the performance, for the defending, does it all have to come from you in the end?
GA
Well, I don't know, the majority of it, we have got to do something different haven't we, we have got to be better than that. We will be trying that and I will be thinking about that and I won't stop thinking about it until we kick off at MK Dons at 7.45pm on Tuesday. But up to then it is me that is doing my job and at that point the players have to take over and do their jobs and today they didn't do it.
JP
And we haven't had much from the fans tonight but just on the substitutions again, some of the fans saying it was bit late to bring on Richard Offiong to give him any chance of actually affecting the game.
GA
Yeah, that is right, but we felt that we were getting enough balls in there. We have got two lads capable of heading the ball, I thought Vincent was doing OK, Dobes has got his pace, Richard is something different, fair point, I am OK with that. But he has gone on and he has made an impact for seven or eight minutes. Could he have been brought on earlier? Possibly, yeah, but these are all hindsight things.
JP
And the injury situation, two players ill, what is the situation with them and the rest of your squad ahead of Tuesday?
GA
Well it is rest up I think over the weekend and see how everybody is on Monday. That has not been a help to us, but again no excuses, we have to rest up and see what group we have got on Monday and then we will plan a team and a gameplan for hopefully getting a better result than that today.
JP
And I am not going to put must win over Tuesday for you, I am not going to put that on you. But it must be a better performance I am sure?
GA
Absolutely, you are more than entitled to say must win I think, you are more than entitled to say must improve and I understand that myself as well. I will always take criticism when it is deserved and today the whole group deserve the criticism we are undoubtedly going to get.