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" We've lost the game to two special goals from Graham Kavanagh, two excellent finishes. They were two goals that could have graced the Premier League. The first one certainly gave the Carlisle team a lift and all the supporters a lift. They responded to it by raising their game by 15-20 per cent and we didn't raise our game in response to that. In patches we played ok, but, at times in the second half, we gave the ball away too cheaply and caused ourselves problems.
" All you can do is look at it and reflect on Monday morning and work on the things we could have done better today. At times the back four were too open and I felt were left exposed, and we need to be tighter as a team. If there is a game where we don't play as well in possession then we need to have that ability to grind out a 1-1 or a 0-0 or even a 2-0, whatever it is. I never felt that today and we were open and their front two (Scott Dobie and Vincent Pericard) caused us problems all afternoon.
" Unfortunately I was sent to the stands, it is a passionate game and sometimes it is difficult to keep control. But if anyone gets the chance to see it on the television it was a strange penalty awarded against us, but that hasn't cost us the game today. I was annoyed that it was a penalty and I was also annoyed we didn't follow it in.
" I lost my cool, which is not good, sometimes those things happen, but why he gave that penalty I'm really not sure. I've asked him (Mark Haywood). He said he felt there was a push in there. It just seemed to be so quick, it was as if he'd almost made his mind up to award a penalty before the ball had come into the box. "
" It was a definite penalty for us, and we were always going to get it, but today we didn't play as well as we can do. We had spells where we did play OK. I felt we were careless in possession at times, though, and gave the ball away cheaply and got punished for it. We've just got to take it on the chin and move on to next week.
" All in all, it's been a disappointing day for us. It's a long old journey to come up and we wanted to get back on the bus with a win. But it wasn't to be. We've got to improve on things that we did on the day and we will do that. I thought Carl (Ikeme) did well though and I thought Elliot (Omosuzi) played well too. Obviously with Elliot he was always going to tire towards the end of the game as he was lacking in match fitness.
" The fact we are second going into the two cup games is nice. But we've just been beaten 3-1 at Carlisle and my thoughts are now on what we can do better, and we want to put on a better show in our next game. Any defeat is tough to take. We've got high expectations at Charlton and we are disappointed by today's result.
" We are not going to get carried away with it, we've just got to make sure that the things we spoke about in the dressing room about what we could do better we put into practice. A win would have set us up nicely. We didn't get it and that's it. I'm not going to speak about the lads' attitude and application as all the way through the season it has been excellent. Today it didn't go for us. We got beaten by a bizarre penalty award, and two excellent goals. I can't fault our attitude, but on the day we didn't play as well as we have been doing. "