Neil McDonald - Radio Cumbria Interview

Last updated : 16 February 2007 By Thetashkentterror

Blues manager Neil McDonald
United boss Neil McDonald spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's James Phillips on Tuesday evening as he picked the bones out of the 4-1 defeat at home to Yeovil last Saturday while also speaking about the match away to Leyton Orient this coming weekend :


" They (Leyton Orient) are down there so they will be scrapping for their lives, and, believe it or not, it will be another difficult game on Saturday. We'll try and keep a clean sheet and keep them quiet for the first 20 minutes, because they are in front of their own fans and will be wanting to come out and start off well. If we can keep them quiet, then try and dominate the game in our own gameplan on how to try and break then down and try and create chances, and hopefully put the ball in the back of the net.

" At the same time we need to be very, very hard to break down ourselves, to try and frustrate their players as well as their fans. They have been in the bottom four for the majority of the season, they started off OK but they've gone through a little bit of a bad patch. We have to make sure that we keep them down there because it's very, very important that we beat the teams below us.

" I've watched the video of the Yeovil game today and we've totally dominated the first-half, I think they have only come into our box on a couple of long throw-ins which we've cleared and dealt with really, really well. We didn't let them get into their stride at all, they've obviously had a telling off at half-time, and we've probably given them a pat on the back too much at half-time. We started off a little bit slowly, we didn't close down, we didn't try and get into them for the first 15-20 minutes to try and keep them quiet. If we'd done that then we would have probably finished them off.

" This team (Yeovil) has been in the top six for most of the season and they were patient, things weren't working out for them in the first-half. They gradually came into the game though and when the chances came along they stuck them in the back of the net because they only had four real chances in the whole of the game. I don't think the scorelines reflect the way the two games went, especially away from home, it was my first defeat and I felt very, very aggrieved. I felt exactly the same on Saturday, that we certainly didn't deserve to be beaten. At the same time though, if we don't work as hard as we did in the first-half and teams have chances then nine times out of ten teams in the top six will punish you, and that is exactly what they did. "



" It's a huge week coming up for us but every week is going to be huge now. When you've got three games in a week though, two away and one at home, a chance is there to pick up nine points and put us right back in where we are trying to get. As I say though, we'll just take each game as it comes and see how we do from there. We're not that far away, another little run, and trying to break this thing where we can only win two games on the trot, it's vitally important to do that until the end of the season. If we do that then we'll be in a fantastic position.

" We were both (McDonald and Greg Abbott) angry with the referee and his assistants performances on that day (at Northampton). Sometimes you do get frustrated and you say things that you possibly regret, we're both passionate about the game though, we're both passionate about Carlisle. We were really, really disappointed with some of the outcomes of the free-kicks and the goals and it's hard to keep your temper sometimes. Greg will take it on the chin though, he's accepted that he was wrong and he has apologised and unfortunately he has been fined for that.

" No doubt the lads will take the mickey out of him because of that as well, he gives 100% and he's fully committed to what we are trying to do. It's disappointing that they haven't taken into consideration that he has had a very, very good record and has never been involved before. That probably shows you how bad, or how poor, the performances of the referees were when we were getting involved, because we've very rarely got involved in the whole of the season with referees. We just let them try and get on with their job and we do our job, but sometimes it spills over.

" Paul Jewell has got in trouble for it, it always seems to be the football side and not so much the referee side. They are under pressure, of course they are with the TV cameras left, right and centre at different angles, although it is slightly different at our level. You expect them to be fair though and when you feel as though they are not fair then you shout off. "