Joey, I thought your players gave everything today. They dominated possession and corners, but in the end, it was one goal that split the two sides.
Yeah, strange in terms of we felt we were fully in control of the game. At half time, we were just asking for a little more quality in the final third in and around the box.
I never ever felt it was a game we were going to lose, but when it’s tight and 0-0… They’re in a bit of form and they had a passionate crowd behind them and we’ve managed to concede and give them something hang on to.
But I can’t fault the lads for their endeavour, they kept going right to the end. Sometimes. You need a little bit of luck in football. A ball from Elliot Anderson goes right the way along the six-yard line and Harvey Saunders is waiting to tap it in and their player deflects it just out of his reach. The ref misses it and we don’t get the corner, we don’t get the goal and Harvey ends up getting a yellow card for protesting.
You need a little bit of luck sometimes and I thought today, I can’t question the lads' attitude and application, but we’re disappointed to leave here with no points.
How do you view the goal that did separate the sides? A bit of luck, maybe, on the left-hand side, and a deflection that fell to a player to tap it into an empty net?
Yeah, and you need a bit of luck sometimes. I thought Belly made a couple of really good stops, certainly against the run of play.
We’ve got to defend that better. We should have dealt with the initial part of it, we should have kept possession instead of kicking it out for a throw-in, especially when they’ve got the long throw and the boy launching it in.
They end up taking that one short and Hooley will be disappointed when he watches it back because he shouldn’t be getting beat there, and if he does get beat he shouldn’t be allowing the boy to roam in, but there were a couple of mistakes after that as well. They’ve managed to pull it back, we’ve oversold on the edge, a really good save and then we’re not picking up the bodies in the box and it falls to one of their players, who taps it in.
Frustrating, but seven to go and we’re right in the mix.
When you concede, it’s about how you react. I know it’s disappointing that you’ve lost, but positives in the way they reacted and they did everything but score.
Yeah, I don’t doubt these lads.
We lost Antony Evans in the week to a little bit of a niggle. He’s a major source of creation and inspiration and then losing Nick (Anderton) this morning to failing a fitness test after picking up a knock in training yesterday does disrupt you a little bit.
We had to move Harry (Anderson) back around (to left-back) and we had to bring Sammy (Nicholson) in a little bit earlier than we’d want to do after he missed a bit of game time.
But we’ve had more than enough quality out there today to get the job done and it’s three points that we’ll be disappointed on (losing) on reflection because I felt if we got the first goal here, we’d have cruised.
Two key players, hopefully not serious injuries and a chance of being back next week?
Both are in with a shout (of playing next week), maybe the game after that. I’m not sure now the games are spaced out a bit, but certainly, we want to pick the same team. We’ve managed to do that through a lot of the Saturday, Tuesdays and sod’s law, the time you go Saturday to Saturday, you pick up a couple of niggles.
We had more than enough quality out there today, and if we keep showing that endeavour and commitment for each other, we’ll get what we need to get us to where we want to go to between now and the end of the season.
You said very early on there will be twists and turns. I don’t think it was realistic to win every single game, but it’s how you react now, starting next week against Bradford.
Yeah, and that will be another tough game. Similarly to Carlisle, a new manager has come in and they’ve got a bit of a new manager bounce. I’ve not seen Bradford’s result today, but they certainly seem to have picked up.
Mark (Hughes) has been a Premier League manager and I imagine there’ll be a bit of the experience he’s got, trying to take our crowd away from us, but it’s nothing new and nothing we haven’t faced before.
We’ve just got to keep turning up and committing to each other like we have today and most times, that will be enough with the quality we have.
Joey, I think back to the Oldham and Newport games and the way you responded to that. You can trust these lads that they will come back with the right sort of performance next week, can’t you? They have done it in the past when you have had a slip-up, coming back in the next game and righting the ship.
Yeah, and I speak to the lads all the time. Sometimes you can get beat and you never had a chance of winning the game. You can see from the Carlisle crowd and the players and the lying on the deck and the timewasting and so on and so forth, you can see that we are a big scalp for teams and you’ve got to get used to that.
From our perspective, whenever we’ve had a poor performance or a poor result, we’ve responded.
Today, up until the final third, I thought we were really good and controlled away from home against one of the form teams in the division. It certainly didn’t look like the two teams at the top of the form table.
I think we were markedly better in possession, but we’ve got to pick ourselves up again and it’s a tough game against Bradford on Saturday.
“Snatchy” is a description you’ve used in games in the past like this. Do you think this was the same and that in the final third, you just lacked that little bit of poise? You had those moments at the back end of the first half where you we’re exploiting the spaces around the edge of the box and it felt like the goal was coming, but it was a bit rushed and hurried?
Yeah, and it’s not like some of our lads in there.
The injury to Nick made us move Harry off the frontline. He’s been in really good goalscoring form at the minute, but we didn’t feel the other lads were match-ready to go in and for a game of this significance, you don’t really want to be using it to give lads minutes and get lads fit.
We knew it would be a tough contest, we knew we’d have to wrestle control of it and I felt we did that.
Second half, we made attacking subs to go and win the game. We probably could have kept Glenn Whelan and Paul Coutts in there, which would have really taken care of a large part of their attacking arsenal in terms of the transitional phase.
But in the first period, we were probably guilty of having a little bit too much possession without any end product and final third box entries.
Shuffle the deck and sometimes it pays off, and sometimes you don’t win and it doesn’t quite bear fruit.
But again, the players’ endeavour. They kept going right to the end. The ref stopped the contest and we weren’t the losing side, if that game carries on they’re on for their lives. They had about 15 of them down stretching their hamstrings for cramp.
Credit to Carlisle, they defended heroically with some big performances in the backline for them, and they’ve got a real bounce out of the new manager.
Disappointment for us, but seven big games to go.
Antony’s injury, what is it and how did it occur? Did it happen in training?
I think it was from a tackle in the Northampton game. He went into a tackle and the lad’s left the studs up the inside of his calf. We just felt it was a bruise and a kick, but it hasn’t transpired to be that.
It’s ended up being a little bit more than a bruise and a kick, albeit it’s probably one or two games rather than five or six, which is good, but we certainly could have done with him today.
Finally, just a message for the fans. There were a few Newcastle ones that boosted the numbers, but 500-plus that came from Bristol. Disappointing not to reward them with a performance, but they are right behind your team at this moment in time.
Yeah, they’ve been superb and we’re aware that it’s a long way to go and it’s the end of the season. Purse strings, inflation and the cost of living going through the roof, and we don’t take it for granted.
Disappointing that we can’t send them away with a bit more of a skip in their step, but those who have turned up today or tuned in, I think they’ll see a team fully committed and pushing, doing its best for the quartered jersey.
If we turn up and be committed like that every week, we’ll have no problem between now and the end of the season.
It must have been a novel experience having a few hundred Newcastle fans supporting your team and, in particular, one individual?
Yeah, it’s nice. They get to see him live and hopefully, in the coming years they get more opportunities to see him in Newcastle’s first team.
He will certainly have to have a better end product than today, but I thought he was magnificent. He wants to take the ball with real bravery, always wants it, always available.
We’re delighted to have him, and good for the Newcastle fans to travel over. They might just be his family.
Despite the investment there, do you see him making the breakthrough? It’s going to be very hard for homegrown players.
Phil Foden has shown for Manchester City if you’re good enough and you’re a local boy, every fan wants to see a local boy in the side.
It’s going to be tricky because in the summer they will probably be linked with a lot of household names, but you never know. I always believe if you get an opportunity and you’re good enough, you’ll take it and I certainly think he is.
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