Carlisle United manager Keith Millen admitted he was angry over his side’s latest defeat in League Two.
The Blues stayed in the bottom two after a 2-0 home reversal to Harrogate Town which included familiar old failings – missed chances and sloppy goals conceded.
He said after the game: “It’s a quiet dressing room, they’re disappointed and they have to change that. If they can’t it’s down to me as a manager to get them angry. Because I’m angry. And I’m sure they are, the fans are angry, and we have to take this anger into the game on Saturday.
“It’s nothing to do with how we’re going to play. We have to be so angry that anything that comes in our box, we’re winning. Anything that goes in their box, we’re winning it.
“I think the way we’re passing the ball, the chances we’re creating, I can’t really complain about that. That’s what I’m trying to get – an identity to what we’re doing. But I’m not that naïve to think, just carry on doing this.
“We’ve got to change this trend of losing football matches. I’m not going to sit and pretend everything is fine, when it isn’t.
“Without having watched the game back, I don’t think people can complain about how many balls and crosses and opportunities we created. We’ve never sat back into a defensive team.
“Every game we’ve dominated possession, we’ve had loads more opportunities, but I don’t want to talk about that. It’s more what we’ve got to do to get a real drive to win a football match. It’s not the shape, tactics, it’s a mindset that we need, and we need it soon.”
Millen felt that Harrogate had three attempts on goal and they scored twice.
He went on: “I have to change the mentality of the group before Saturday. We need to change the momentum we’re in. I’m not going to hide behind the way we’re playing. It doesn’t matter how you play, you have to have the mentality where you’re going to win your next football match.
“At the moment I’m giving the players the opportunity to tell us that they’re doing this and that, but that has to stop now. They have to start winning as well as doing the other things well.
“On Thursday it will be a different environment around the place, because losing like this has to hurt. To dominate the game like we did, and then to lose, that’s down to more of a mindset than it is the tactics or the style we’re playing.”
Carlisle are back in League action on Saturday against Walsall, the second of four successive home games.
But the other two are with :Lincoln City in the Papa Joe’s Trophy and Shrewsbury in the FA Cup.
