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" There is a shortage of energy that you need to have at this stage, at any stage basically, but I think that we have got one or two running on empty. The squad is thinning out as you have seen, that is not an excuse at all but we were overpowered in the first-half by Millwall's performance. They played very well, we weren't up to that, you just felt at the second-half we were starting that little bit better and brighter.
" Then as happened a wee bit last week the penalty and the sending-off has obviously knocked the stuffing out of us. So no excuses about the performance, but we have got people running on empty a little bit, and obviously there is a massive disappointment, not just in the dressing-room, but in Carlisle at the moment.
" We've got to do it now without David Raven and Danny Livesey as well. There are certain plusses in there, young Gary Madine has done well, (Darren) Campion has done well as he has come on. Simon Hackney and my goalkeeper (Keiren Westwood) were very, very good again today but not everybody. I'm not labelling that at everything in there, and there is certainly not a lack of trying, there is just that energy missing that we've had in the previous two months, that we have found hard to rekindle in April.
" Running on empty is totally opposite to not trying and not having the desire to do it. There is a huge emotion, there is a huge physical effort that has been put in to get us in the position that we are in at the moment. Sometimes that takes it's toll on people a little bit, and that looked like that today, that we didn't have, I keep using the word energy, that we want, that you need at this stage of the season. It's just deserted us, it's not a question of people not being fit, or people not trying, it's not a question of that at all. It's just that we don't have that zip about our play that we'd seen certainly since the New Year onwards. "
" I shall work very, very hard to motivate the players of course, and I think that the players themselves have got to get motivated, as have the supporters. It's a huge disappointment for us today, we expected better and expected to be in a different position than the one that we are facing just now. So it's a question of getting over that very quickly for all of us, and flooding the place next Saturday and seeing what we can achieve then. We'll work very hard, me in particular, if you are calling me the motivator, but I need motivating as well and I need that from my players as well, that will come.
" I'm the manager, I take the results and the players have to be responsible for the performances. I'm trying to explain both, and today it's a very poor day for us. Millwall deserved to win, they were much the better side, and trying to find reasons why, but I suppose the simple thing is that they played a lot better than we did.
" It often is the case, maybe they made us look poor, it's on your day and how you do things, and we didn't do it today. We didn't perform as close as to as I would want to, let alone as we would like to, we were quite a long way from it and that is something that we have to accept responsibility for. The next opportunity is next Saturday to try to do something about it, because that is what we have got to do.
" Keiren has had a super season and he has done very well, and he has made some good saves today for us. He's fine, his performance today was very good because they were getting at him a little too often for everybody's liking. Then when they did find their way through in the first-half, you try to get to 1-0 at half-time and see if we can readjust it. "
" We've tried to readjust it and it looked a little more promising, but obviously the length of time that we had to try to do something about it was cut short. I can only really hang on to that, and say that it looked like we were going to turn it around. Keiren's saves could have kept us in the game and given us a result, but it hasn't happened, we've lost 3-0 away from home and that's something that we don't enjoy at all.
" We made the change as you saw and we pushed it on, young Gary came on and kept hold of the ball in the first five minutes a lot more than we had done in the first 45. So that was part of that change, to keep the ball at the top end a bit more and see if we could create, because we didn't do that in the first period. That is opportunity lost as I said last week, the first-half was opportunity lost and it was again this Saturday. That's something that we inside the football club have to talk about, and determine how that happened and what we do about it.
" I've not asked the players yet about their feelings, but I'm sure that as we go along then people will take responsibility. We do that, the players are pretty good in that sense, they are very responsible about what we do and how we do it. I've said this before, and I think that when you are in defeat you've got to say exactly the same as when you are winning games. It's so easy when you win to say that everything is rosy, when you have had your defeats they are as honest as anybody.
" I've got an exceptionally depressed dressing-room that is going to take a lot of work to lift it up but we will. Those players have not performed as well as they would have liked to today, they will maybe get a chance again next week to put that right. I'll have to bring in a fresh face next week. We've seen a little bit of it in the past few games where the results have not been to our liking, but it's because we've been below-par as much as anything. It's something that we will have to take a careful look at. "