|
" Totally and utterly embarrassed by everything that I have witnessed this afternoon on the pitch. I can only apologise, and I know that is not enough for anybody, but I think that it has been a pretty awful afternoon. It is the lowest I have been for a long, long time and not just at Carlisle, but in previous football clubs I have played at. To have a team represent me if you like, and perform in that manner is a massive embarrassment for me and I am very, very sorry for what I have seen and what everybody else has seen, and people connected with Carlisle United feel today.
" I think that there is some feeling that I am not stimulating the players into a meaningful performance, but there is also the feeling that people have to stimulate themselves. It is a job of work as much as anything and whilst it is a great job of work to have you have got to have a responsibility. I take full responsibility, as I do for all results, but I keep saying that there has to be responsibility by players for their performances.
" We have prepared for this in the best way that we think we can. We have brought the team down the day before, we have given them a good hotel to stay in, we have looked after every side of that in terms of preparation. We have worked on the training ground, we have given them a better surface to work on on the training ground on Friday morning and we have been let down by some poor performances today.
" I take full responsibility, I am not shirking out of that, but I keep talking about collectively and today is collectively an embarrassment for everybody at our football club. As the manager I am the one who has to come up and stand and face the music, and I'll do that, I am big enough to do that. Some of my people out there have not been big enough to stand up on the pitch, and that has been really upsetting for me. "
" I am talking about me but I am so disappointed for people. There was a terrific crowd of Carlisle people here and there is a massive crowd of Carlisle people back home. Those critics and those people have just been offered every piece of ammunition they can have today by us, and I am going to have to take it. It is by me as well as the players, I am the manager and I pick that team, I send it out and I look at the names on it and I think that there is a good enough group of names on there to have done better.
" You can say that it is the players as well as me but I am not exempt from the criticism, certainly not, I am right at the front line of it and I take it. I have stood out there at the front line trying to get that football team to play better and work better and try harder with a bit more determination, and it hasn't worked. All I can do is try to move those players around a little bit and change them around.
" You are talking about my job as the manager of the football club aren't you, I am not going to walk in on Monday morning and resign. I am very emotional at the moment and I am certainly not going to get involved in too many answers of that question. I don't think that that is fair at this particular time but we need to perform on Tuesday, and if I am still there on Tuesday then I will stand at the front as I have done today. I will pick a team and I will be working hard with it to try to make it better than we have seen today, because it has got to be better.
" I have just told the players what I think of the performance and I can't stand here and say anything different than I have said in that dressing-room. I might not use the same kind of language or force in what I am saying but at the same time I am saying to you what I have told those players in there, that it is just not acceptable at all.
" They are the ones that start off the conversation today, certainly I have got one or two saying exactly what I have just said to you, they are saying it in the first place. I want to know why, and I think so do many, many other people. The only people that can make that change are those people in the dressing-room because a lot of them are going to be out there again on Tuesday night. "
" They will be at home on Tuesday night and people will be looking, we will right in the firing line if we like perform that, and absolutely right, we have got to be better than that. There is nowhere to go and hide, there is a game on Tuesday night and we have got to have, we have got to have, a response, all of us.
" He (Graham Kavanagh) has kept going today, I will give him that, the lad has kept going. He cares massively about what is going on within the game in general, but certainly at Carlisle at the moment. He is not one that is shy to have his say and I am fine with that, I need one or two more like him. I am not going to criticise Graham, he has been around long enough to have a voice in that dressing-room, and have a content of voice that is going to be meaningful, and some of those players had better listen to him.
" I know exactly what we will do on Monday, we have just talked about it in the dressing-room, we will be there as long as it takes. If it needs to get dark then it gets dark and we are still working then we will do. We are going to have to be harder to beat, that is the first thing that we have got to do, and that will be the first item on the agenda, and there will be others following.
" Paul (Thirwell) came down with us and trained yesterday, he felt the calf a little bit yesterday and we certainly didn't want to get in the position that we were in last week, or last season with Paul. When he came back and was out for a further period, so we are just going to treat that very carefully.
" The other guys, you saw Gary Madine back in today, they are getting better, Jeff Smith was back in today, so we are getting one or two back. We still lost Jennison (Myrie-Williams) in the warm-up though with a back spasm where his muscle tightened up and we had to make that change. So that may ease off by Monday but we will just have to go with what we have got. "