Carlisle United boss on 'huge' Bolton Wanderers gulf

The Blues were taken apart by Ian Evatt’s promotion-chasers who won 4-1 at Brunton Park.

A fourth straight League One defeat saw United remain ten points rom safety in second-bottom position.

Simpson maintains there is still time for Carlisle to dig themselves out of trouble but they rarely got close enough to Bolton.

“There’s no hiding from that – they were they were streets ahead of us, simple as that, in terms of the way they kept the ball, in terms of the individual players,” said Carlisle’s manager.

“I can't argue with the result, I'm not going to try and flower it up in any way. They were way ahead of us.”

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Bolton dominated the opening exchanges and eventually went 2-0 up through quickfire goals from Zak Ashworth and Paris Maghoma.

Carlisle pulled one back through sub Jordan Gibson but late goals from ex-Blues man Kyle Dempsey and Nathanael Ogbeta underlined Bolton’s superiority.

Debutant Jack Diamond, left, with Sam Lavelle and Jon Mellish (Image: Ben Holmes)

“That’s why I tried to change it,” said Simpson of the stark start to the game.

“I tried to change it to see if we could get players higher up the pitch.

“We went with the shape that we did at Barnsley, and Barnsley try to play a similar way to what Bolton do. I think, without being disrespectful, they're probably not as good at it as Bolton are – they’ve got good footballers in there, they've got midfield players like Josh Sheehan who can deal with the ball, Maghoma, who can go past people, even Dempsey, who makes brilliant forward runs and stretches teams, so we couldn't get near to them.

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“I thought we were a little bit better when we went to 4-3-3, we got a little bit closer. But both of the [first two] goals have come with us giving the ball away cheaply, whether that be giving it away in midfield or whether we’re putting it out for a throw-in cheaply, and then not switching on and doing jobs.

“I have to say, I don't think Zak Ashworth meant that – I think it was a cross that just happens to go over [the keeper]. Sometimes there's not a lot you can do.

“We're not getting that luck, you look at Jon Mellish’s header – you just want it to nestle in the bottom corner and it goes the wrong side of the post. You look at the skirmish in the second half when it's bobbling around in the six-yard box. And we're not able to get a toe poke on it.

“So there's little things, and the scoreline looks horrendous at 4-1. But the third goal’s the killer because we’re pushing forward and trying to get a goal.

“And same, maybe, for the fourth one – maybe we should have just gone back into shape and took our medicine at 3-1. But there's a desire to go and try and get back in it.

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“The top and bottom is there was a huge gulf between the two teams and two squads.”

Josh Vela, left, was a second half sub on his debut (Image: Barbara Abbott)

Carlisle have 17 games to bridge the gap to safety with Simpson returning to his efforts in the transfer market before Thursday’s deadline. The Blues then go to Leyton Orient next Saturday.

Simpson, who fielded new signings Jack Diamond and Josh Vela as second-half substitutes, admitted it remained a tough situation but insisted he would not “shirk” the challenge of battling on.

“I think our players are better than we're showing, I really think we've got more ability than we're showing,” added the manager.

“But we were not able to find it, whether it's confidence, belief…I don't really know but we're going to have to step it up, we're going to have to do more than we are actually doing at the moment to give ourselves a fighting chance.

“And there's still enough games. I really do believe there's enough games. There are 17 games and 51 points still to play for.

“But we're going to run out if we don't start doing something quickly. Maybe people already think we have run out of games. But I still believe we haven't.

“That's the message that we've got [to give], that's what I've said in [the dressing room]. I've told them we were beaten by a better team today. But there are enough games. And the first one comes next weekend.”