Carlisle United's Keith Millen reacts to 1-1 draw with Crawley Town

The Blues manager admitted his side were far below their best in the 1-1 Brunton Park draw.

But he was happy with the way United fought to the end and grabbed a result thanks to sub Lewis Alessandra.

“We weren’t at the races from the first kick of the ball,” Millen said.

“We spoke before the game about the standards we’ve set recently, and we asked if we could maintain them, but for whatever reason we didn’t start the game well.

“We kept going, which was great, and the desire to get that next goal was there, even though it wasn’t pretty.

“In the end that got us a draw which we deserved on effort, but not on quality.”

Ashley Nadesan scored against his former club to give Crawley a first-half lead, while he missed a second-half penalty.

Millen disagreed with ref Darren Bond’s spot-kick decision against Jack Armer for a challenge on James Tilley - the Crawley player insisting the United left-back had "kicked my shin" as he passed him when chasing a rebound.

But the manager also said United’s overall game can be much better.

“I’m disappointed in the way we passed the ball,” he added. “The quality of our passing wasn’t good at all. We gave the ball away far too cheaply.

“We we were too far off [Crawley]. We were too deep as a back four, the midfield dropped too deep and that allowed their midfielders too much time on the ball.

“They’re good passers, so they were able to control the game. When you’re set up like we were it meant that when we did win the ball the gap between the back four and the front players was too big to get any sort of link-up play, so that was definitely a problem.

United manager Keith Millen on the touchline

“We spoke about it at half time because why we were doing that, I don’t know.

“Whether we got in that little comfort zone of thinking that all of a sudden we’re a good team and we can just pass the ball as we like, and that makes us drop off because we’re saying, ‘Yeah look at us, we’re good…’

“I don’t think that’s what we’re about, I’d like to think we’re not, but it’s something I will be looking at on the video because we were too spread as a team.”

Fit-again Alessandra scored his first of the season after coming on for his first outing since November.

He and Tristan Abrahams came on late in the game after Millen had earlier introduced Omari Patrick from the bench.

Asked about the timing of his subs, the United boss said: “It’s trying to read the momentum of the game.

“At half-time I could have changed it and did think about it, but I thought, ‘No, I’ll give you ten minutes to try and get our game going again’, so it’s not a knee jerk reaction.

“Every team has a bad half. I tend to say, ‘Okay, let’s put it right at half-time’, give them 10 minutes to then hopefully change things, and if it doesn’t that’s when I feel I have to make the change.

“In the end, the last subs were really just to try and freshen things up, something to fall or something to happen, and that’s what happened.

“Lewi had the chance where he nicked it round the lad and you think he’s going to score, and then got his goal. Sometimes it’s just a freshness, and that we had.”

United slipped a place to 20th but are now seven points above the relegation zone, Alessandra’s 93rd-minute header extending an unbeaten run to four games.

“We’re certainly not a team that’s beaten if we go a goal down any more,” Millen added.

“We generally weren’t good enough, that’s very disappointing, but the lads kept going. We put bodies forward, we had balls into the box, and that gave us some half chances.

“They had a few on the break, but I’m happy with the draw, if not the performance.”