Paul Simpson says he has challenged Carlisle United’s players to show they have the right “mindset”.
Manager Simpson has been left frustrated by the Blues’ inconsistency in recent weeks.
The Cumbrians followed their brilliant win over Bolton Wanderers with an underwhelming defeat to Leyton Orient.
It leaves them hoping to regain some momentum when they make the long trip to League One leaders Portsmouth this weekend.
Simpson said United’s inconsistency is a “worry” and wants players to examine the psychological aspect of their form.
“It is a mindset, and that’s the question I’ve asked the players,” Simpson said.
“You have to ask yourself, has your mindset over this week been right?
“It’s not a case of me passing the buck but I think we tried to prepare them as normal as we possibly could [for the Orient game].
“We had a huge disappointment as a group last Tuesday night [the EFL Trophy defeat to Nottingham Forest’s Under-21s] in everything that happened there, but that shouldn’t affect us because on Saturday it was a different group predominantly.
“We should be going into a game [like that] on the back of having the confidence from what we had last weekend.
“I said to them the challenge was can we build on the late equaliser against Peterborough, can we build on the performance and win at Bolton? And sadly we haven’t done that.”
United are 20th in the table ahead of their longest trip of the league season – a 350.9-mile journey to Fratton Park.
It starts a spell of long journeys for the Blues with trips to Cambridge in the league and Leyton Orient in the FA Cup on consecutive weekends after the Pompey game.
United’s showings against Peterborough and Bolton offered promise and Simpson wants his side to rebuild now.
“I think if we’d looked at these three games with Peterborough at home, Bolton away and Orient at home, if we’d got four points out of it with a loss at Bolton and a win at home to Orient, everybody would have thought it was a decent return,” he added.
“Fantastically, we got a performance and result at Bolton…if [Orient] was done properly then that week is three bonus points.
“We’ve let it slip. It’s an opportunity that we’ve let go away that we have to get back to building again.”
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