Carlisle United boss declares faith in squad for League One

The United manager is preparing for this weekend’s trip to Wycombe Wanderers after a three-game unbeaten run was ended by Derby County.

Carlisle sit 19th in the table after nine games with plenty of work ahead as they continue to find their feet in the division.

Manager Simpson has previously spoken about the need to keep evolving the squad – while prospective owner Tom Piatak has promised a “step change” January budget should his family’s takeover go through.

But in the meantime the Blues boss has declared his faith in the players at his disposal right now.

“We are learning to compete at this level,” he said.

“We have players who can compete at this level, without any doubt.

“We just have to do it more consistently over more periods in the games.

“We have to be clinical when we get those opportunities, and we have to make sure we defend our own box really well.

“Put all those things together, and when you haven’t quite got them all right it leads to a defeat like Saturday [the 2-0 loss to Derby].

Carlisle's defeat to Derby ended a three-game unbeaten run (Image: Ben Holmes)

“We have to deal with it, learn from it, be better – we have to keep working with the group we’ve got and hopefully we can find those results that give everybody a bit more belief.

“We’ve still got a lot of belief that we’ve got players here who can do the job to take the club forward.”

This weekend sees United head to Buckinghamshire to take on an 11th-placed Wycombe side.

It is another contest against a team who are well established at this level and were also a Championship club as recently as 2021.

Simpson wants the response to the Derby game to include highlighting the better aspects of their performance in the Brunton Park setback.

“What we have to do is take the belief out of what we did in the first half, get the momentum back that we’d built up over the previous three games, and just make sure we’re better, simple as that,” he added.