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" I certainly don't feel better about Saturday now, infact it is probably worse because you have had all day Sunday to digest it when you are at home with your family. It is probably not the right place to be doing it somehow, but you do, and we have got a game on Tuesday night and that has got to be considered very quickly.
" So your thoughts move around from one game to the next very quickly because the game is coming. I am quite pleased that we have got a game coming because it will get the demons away and out of the way. We will see if we can perform on Tuesday night, and we have obviously got to be better than we were on Saturday.
" We have got a tough game, we are away from home against a side that made the play-offs in their division last year. So the game is on and the spotlight is on us to go and do well on that night. Everyone will talk positively, me included, but it is about action, and my action is picking the side, and the side that is picked then their action is to go and play. We want to play a bit better than we did on Saturday.
" Sport can change quickly, not just football, but football in particular is our game and we watch it. There are lots of games every week and I watch television and I see a lot of things happening to other clubs and other players, in the same way that things are happening to our club and our players. We can think that we are not on our own but it doesn't make you feel any better because you want your club and your players to be as good as they possibly can be. "
" Quite right, we have made mistakes, all of us, me included, we look at it and ask if we have got it right and if we have done it correctly. The questions are always going to be asked until we do get it right, and that is invariably in the results. So we have got to make sure that both team selection and the reaction of the players has got to be spot on, particularly on Tuesday night.
" I am fully responsible, I always take my responsibility, I never shirk from that, I will always talk to you. I will talk to people as long as people are reasonable in the way that they react with me, then they will get a response, so I haven't got a problem with that. I am fully responsible though, I am the manager, we all take that on our shoulders when we accept the job.
" We have got to get a good performance on Tuesday night and then a good one on television, because we are going national on Saturday. So the next couple of games are big ones for us as a football club to see if we can weather this little period, or whether we are going to sink a little bit further. If we do that then that will be really concerning everybody, but we have got two opportunities to try to turn it round, and we will have a good go at doing that.
" I will just keep saying the same things that we have been saying to the players in a sense, because we have not done a lot of things wrong in the 12 months that I have been here. I can only talk about that period of time, my coaching staff, Greg (Abbott) in particular takes a lot of the training. He talks very purposefully and strongly to the players, positively, and they react well.
" The Friday training session was an excellent day and I came in on Friday and said that I wasn't sure what more we could do to get this team ready for Saturday. Then we see Saturday goes that way and you think that sometimes you are probably better off having a rubbish day on Friday. There is no real logic to the whole thing, you can come away feeling good on Friday but it is no consolation when Saturday is a disappointment to us all. "
" Not just me, but the players too, and it is a question of me standing up and saying that we have got to stand up and be counted and do your job. If I put you in that then let's go and do it, and if I don't then support that team, and let's all get together and see if we can get hold of this game. Particularly on Tuesday because nothing else matters at the moment than getting that correct result and saying that that makes you feel better.
" So it is getting something going in your favour, we have made mistakes, we have missed a penalty on the previous Saturday, we have had a mistake from a goalkeeper who has had a pretty good game up until that point, yet he will be remembered for that mistake. So that is where you have got to be strong, because for 89 minutes 45 seconds Ben Williams has done OK.
" I'm using him as an example but it is not just him is it, there are other people I felt off their game in the last couple of weeks. Ben is an easy one to hide behind and we mustn't do that, we must all stand up and say what our responsibility is in this group, and me first and foremost because I am the manager and seen as the leader of them.
" Team selection doesn't get any easier, because I have got to get it right. My selection will only be ratified after the game basically, as it always is. I said on Saturday that mine is the only team that ever plays and wins or loses. No-one else has a team that plays, they all think they will win, which is fine. So I have got to get it right in that respect, in terms of the players I think after Saturday it is throw the balls up in the air and the first eleven that come down can have a game.
" They can't knock on my door, there were not enough good performances on Saturday to say to me that someone deserves their place in the next game. So I can pick a side on Tuesday, some of them will probably still play and be a bit fortunate to have done that, but it is still opportunity time and they have got to take it. "
" It is alright looking at the names and numbers and what they have done and where they have been, the same with myself, this is a bit of a moment of truth everywhere. This is the first period that I have experienced at Carlisle obviously, I am learning a heck of a lot about my players, my coaching staff, the supporters of Carlisle and everybody around and about us in this period. We will come through it, I have got no doubt about that, but I want to come through it quicker rather than later, and Tuesday is the first chance that we have got.
" Cup ties are great levellers as well aren't they, they won't consider themselves as the underdogs, they are at home against a bigger club. They will see us as the play-off people last year, they were in the play-offs themselves last year and close to getting in our league. They will be looking at us and seeing how close they are to our level, we will be trying to make sure that we can be a level above them and win the game.
" So I think that there is a lot riding on it because this club in particular has seen successes in this competition, and the further that you go in it the more exciting and interesting it becomes. Not only that but the more financial aspect comes into it as well for the football club, so it is a good competition to go a fair way in, and we want to do that.
" It is a super competition, it is divided into two sections, North and South, we have got some decent clubs in our section in the North. If we can qualify that after Tuesday night and go a bit further, you get your break with your cup draws, and who knows, this can go into league form. I think that that is really important, I don't differentiate between cups and leagues and say that it doesn't matter and this and that.
" It goes on, games go on, it is no different a football match to any other game for me, particularly now when we need to pick up ourselves and get on. So first I want a good performance and second I want to win, and not necessarily in that order, perhaps I want to win first and then the performance will take care of itself. "
" Paul Thirlwell's ban will be in seven days so it will be Milton Keynes that he misses, he will be available for tomorrow if I want to use him. He has been unlucky in a couple of his bookings, he was reckless at Walsall in front of us, that was a poor tackle. I thought that he was slightly unfortunate on Saturday, I have looked at that again and there were other challenges in that game that were cynical and were just free-kicks given and off you go.
" What happened I think is that when the foul, the challenge went in, the referee (Darren Drysdale) was surrounded by a lot of opposing players. When we were fouled we didn't do that, we don't do that, I don't want my players to do that. So it makes it less more innocuous in a sense, and my players get up, we don't roll about either. I'm not saying that their player (Edrissa Sonko) wasn't hurt but he stayed down a long time and recovered well after the yellow card was shown.
" We have a discipline about that, about the team that I want to keep. So I think that there is a bit of a mix in Paul's bookings, one or two I am not happy about and one or two I think that he has been a wee bit unfortunate. He will be a miss though because he is my captain and he leads very well. There won't be any guarantee that he will come straight back in, he doesn't get special favours because of that, so he is aware of that. As we keep saying though, opportunities are there all day and every day for players at this club, and there is going to be one there for somebody.
" There were no knocks physically on Saturday but the performance on Saturday gives me an opportunity for change more than anything else. That is now up to me, some who performed out there on Saturday a little bit below par will get another go and some may not, that is my choice along with my staff here. Opportunities are there for anybody though, whether it is for whatever reason they are in that team tomorrow night. It is a first-team game and it is a first-team game that we want to win, so regardless of why people get in the team it is up to them to take that opportunity.
" We have already talked about possible loan moves over the weekend, Greg and I particularly, so here we are on Monday and there won't be anybody in for Tuesday night. We will be having a look at that though and seeing if it is necessary for the rest of the month or later on. "
" He (Jennison Myrie-Williams) completes his loan I think on the 18th of October. He has done himself no harm has he, in the last two appearances as substitute he has certainly lightened the place up a little bit. There were a few people dissatisfied with Simon Hackney's replacement on Saturday but they quietened down quickly when they saw Jennison running at people and delivering. He is a livewire young fellow and he has got an opportunity to come I think.
" I can't try to please all the supporters, I thought that a lot of them tried hard to get behind the team and support the team. Some wilted a bit quicker than others similar to my players, we are all people, we are human, reactions take their way and we have to deal with it and be responsible for our own actions. I have got to try to support this group of players though and I hope that many people will be behind me doing the same.
" I said on Saturday that the players have got to sometimes give the lift to everybody else, their performances do that. I am in it with them, I am not separating myself from anybody whatsoever. I am the manager of this football club and that encompasses everybody, but the players have got to take responsibility for what they do, the same as I do, and the same the way the supporters behave.
" They have got to take their own responsibility for that, that is their choice. The players ultimately though are the ones that cross that white line and off they go. We tried to set them up and the thing didn't work as well as we wanted it to. The early goal was a real bitter blow but the reaction to that disappointed me a little bit. There was a long, long time for that goal to be recovered and the game to be going on and won.
" We have gone behind here a number of times, even this year and come back and won. So it is not an issue in that sense, and probably even longer than most games to get ourselves back in, but we didn't, we didn't do that, one or two shoulders drooped, that is the first time that I have seen that and I don't particularly like it. "