Carlisle United boss on 'really poor' Harrogate Town defeat

The Blues came up short once more against their bogey side who went through with a 1-0 win.

It was an eighth encounter with Harrogate without success for the Cumbrians.

And manager Simpson felt their efforts in the final third were sorely lacking, on a night Ryan Edmondson missed a second-half penalty.

“I’m not one for criticising people who miss penalties but I thought the lack of quality of the penalty summed up our lack of quality in the final third,” said Carlisle’s boss.

“I thought we were really, really poor from players who have better ability than they showed in the final third.”

Harrogate keeper Mark Oxley punches clear under pressure from United sub Sean Maguire (Image: Barbara Abbott)

Simpson said Carlisle lacked “energy” in the first half and accused the team of showing poor body language after Sam Folarin shot Harrogate ahead.

• Jon Colman's big match verdict on Harrogate 1-0 Carlisle

That led him to make a quadruple substitution at half-time.

“We had to do something. I just didn’t think it was good enough,” he said.

“I wanted to see some energy. I felt as though the body language was rubbish. From going a goal down, it was really poor.

“That’s not us. That isn’t what we’re about. That’s a big disappointment.”

Simpson had made four changes to his starting line-up, handing Dylan McGeouch his full debut as well as calling up Taylor Charters, Jack Ellis and Ben Barclay.

The second half saw a competitive debut for sub Dan Butterworth, while Edmondson got his first outing of the season as Sean Maguire and Callum Guy also came on.

But it was to no avail, Edmondson blowing their best chance from the spot after Charters had been fouled.

Jon Mellish had earlier hit the crossbar and Carlisle passed up other good opportunities.

But they were also regularly troubled at the other end by Harrogate’s dangerous attackers Folarin and Abraham Odoh.

Ryan Edmondson's penalty miss (Image: Barbara Abbott)

Asked further about his criticisms about energy and body language, Simpson said: “I honestly don’t know how it can be explained, I wish I had the answer to it.

“I just felt that they didn’t raise their game when we went a goal behind. I thought we went under a little bit.

“Second half we did [improve], but I do think it’s psychologically easy to play when you’re 1-0 down because you’re chasing games. You’ve got to be able to do that from the start.

“I thought we had it in the first period in the game, we showed some good signs, got into good areas, but the quality in the final third was really, really poor from a group of players who are better than they showed in that quality.”

Simpson is continuing to try and add another attacking player to his squad but said that, regardless of that search, Carlisle needed to be better against Simon Weaver’s league Two side.

• Harrogate Town v Carlisle United - as it happened

“It was about taking care [on the final pass]. It’s a lapse in concentration to really focus. You can do all of your running, but when you get to that moment and you’ve got to find that final pass, that’s where there has to be a really clear mind and a real focus to make sure that’s right.

“It wasn’t there tonight. That’s what we have got to improve on – we’ve got to.

Dan Butterworth takes on Warren Burrell (Image: Barbara Abbott)

“Because everybody knows we’re not a team that’s laden with 15-20 goal-a-season strikers, so when we get our opportunity we have to make them count and we didn’t tonight.”

Simpson said he was encouraged by the efforts of sub Maguire, praised defenders Sam Lavelle and Ben Barclay for their second-half displays and said Butterworth was bright when he came on.

“Unfortunately there were too many, particularly in the final third where we let ourselves down,” he said.

Simpson said he faced critical comments from some of Carlisle’s travelling fans in Yorkshire.

“I have to stand there and get abuse off the fans behind me, and rightly so, with people saying that they thought I’d said I wanted to be in the hat,” he said.

“I definitely wanted to be in the hat for the next round. That’s why we didn’t make wholesale changes.

“We’ve come here and we haven’t done enough, it’s as simple as that.”