Chris Beech admits Carlisle United’s current run “isn’t good enough” – but he praised his players for going to the end against Grimsby.

Sub Offrande Zanzala rescued a point with an injury-time strike that forced a 1-1 draw.

It came at the end of a game against the EFL’s bottom side that had often been a dire spectacle.

It was only Carlisle’s second point in eight games, but head coach Beech said his team had stuck at things until the final whistle.

“I shook their hands in the changing rooms and said, ‘Well done for keeping going’,” Beech said.

“It’s easy to give up. When you’re tired, your kit’s wet through and you’re fatigued, it’s easier to give up and they didn’t, so well done to them.

“I agree that two points out of 24 isn’t good enough. We aren’t accepting that, the players aren’t accepting that. It can make you tense and stressed, but we have to make sure that whatever we do, we do it with honesty.

“Rod McDonald should possibly be tighter for the header Grimsby score, but he keeps going until the end and ends up setting up the goal, and those are the traits and characteristics you want to see in your players.

“They’re fighting characteristics.”

Lenell John-Lewis’s 16th-minute header had given Paul Hurst’s strugglers the advantage and for long spells Carlisle did not seem able to find a way back.

Zanzala came off the bench to replace Taylor Charters and with fellow sub Ethan Walker also making a positive impact, United at least finished the game on the front foot.

It was, though, another struggling performance with United remaining 13th in League Two.

Beech added: “It was a hard-fought game and I was very disappointed to concede the goal.

“I don’t think Paul Farman had anything to do in terms of saves, but granted we didn’t work their keeper enough either.

“We started the game very well, we had many opportunities to get good crosses, some of them we took and others we didn’t. Taylor Charters put a great ball in after four or five minutes and Omari Patrick should attack it with more vigour. If he does I think he scores.

“We had a few cross-shots that we should have capitalised on but what we weren’t doing was reading the miscue of a Grimsby defender.

“There were a few moments like that, but I was very pleased with the competitive spirit shown by the players, because it’s very difficult in situations that can happen.

“We’re in a situation that will feel difficult to the players, it really will, but to go against the wind and the rain showed great character.

“We spent much of the second half in Grimsby’s half, we asked a lot of questions, and the save off Brennan [Dickenson]’s header was unreal. He attacked that well, but unfortunately it came back to him too quickly and it went over the bar.

“In my opinion they deserve great credit to keep going the way they did, but people will probably criticise that because obviously it’s against a team that aren’t higher in the league.

“As I said pre-match, there’s no significant difference in this division between the teams that can spend £4m on a budget, and teams like ours.

“Grimsby are more like us, so they’re facing their own challenges. I’m just pleased we got going and that Ozzy Zanzala got off the mark. I’m pleased for him and everybody at the club that we got something out of the game.”

Beech lamented United’s three-week barren run which followed a disrupted spell which saw many players suffering from Covid-19 and then a string of weather-related postponements.

The Carlisle boss added: “They’ve shown great character, and we all have, because we’ve been asked some right strange questions since January 2. But that’s what we’ve got to do.

“It’s good that the team and the squad are united to keep Carlisle united and represent us.

“It’s not great in terms of not winning enough games in the last three weeks. But we’ve done very well last season to make sure we’re good to be this season, the recruitment in the summer, and to be fighting together, which can still be an outside chance of doing something we could argue we shouldn’t.

“But where we’ve been and where we’ve taken the club [to the top of the table in January], people will only see [this] as, I suppose, failure, but it isn’t.

“There are different types of successes, and we’ve just got to keep fighting until maybe we can touch something.”

Beech said that, despite United’s current form, he still believes in his players.

Sarcastically, he said: “Let’s send them all off to the job centre, let’ get rid of ‘em all, they don’t care..."

He then said: “They’re playing for what, a third, quarter, fifth, half, a three-quarter ee of what last season’s players got? They’re giving everything.

“We’re just not getting a lot at the moment. We’re getting penalties given and taken off us, we’ve had four penalties against us and you could argue Rhys Bennett’s wasn’t against Oldham, and Dean Furman’s; he got fouled against Colchester before he trips on the back of Frank Nouble’s legs.

“It’s amazing what sometimes these referees can affect at the point of it being effective within a game. But we can’t have excuses for that. It’s frustrating but the players deserve credit, because they are giving everything.”