Carlisle boss Keith Millen has praised the way his players have been defending as a team but expects them to be tested tomorrow at League Two leaders Forest Green.
United are on a sequence of five league games unbeaten, with four of them featuring clean sheets which he believes represents the confidence now embedded within the squad.
He told the club website: “I’m expecting us to go there and perform like we have done because there’s a consistency to what we’ve been doing for a while.
“The clean sheets are there because there’s definitely an understanding of the principles of how we defend as a team. I think the team have bought into the defending, the frontmen have to do a lot of work defensively, it’s not just the back four, it’s all the units.
“When we stay compact as a team we look very hard to break down. That’s brilliant for the players, for me, it gives you confidence you can stay in games at times.
“We’ve got to keep doing that, and it will be a real test on Saturday because they’re a very attacking team that are full of confidence, that have got that arrogance if you like to say we are top of the league, and they go for it.
“We’ve got to be ready for that but we’ve been solid and we make it hard for the opposition. Our last two away performances were big games for different reasons, and we came out on top in them.
“We’ll be fine as far as our attitude and readiness for the game, and then we need to make sure when we do win the ball that we take more care of it, otherwise you can get pinned back in your own half against these teams.
“We have to make sure that when we do win the ball we take more care. If we do, with what we’ve got upfront, we can cause any team problems. The key to the result of the game will be how effective we can be when we win the ball.
“I’ve looked at a lot of the teams that go there and play against them, and they change and try to match up against them. I understand that, I’ve done that before in my career, sometimes you do that.
“Normally you find when a team’s top of the league and have a certain way of playing, and you try to match them up, they’re normally better at it because they’ve been doing it all season.
“I don’t think Forest Green change their shape for any of their games, because they’ve got that belief.
“We’ve got belief in what we’re doing, and I will tweak it how I see necessary to try and combat what they do, but still try and keep an identity to what we’re doing, I think that’s really important.
“Since I’ve been here that’s what we’ve done, and we’ll do the same on Saturday. The league table doesn’t lie, the stats don’t lie, and the amount of goals they’ve scored means that they’re doing something right.
“I’m not that arrogant or think we’re that good that we can just go there and say ‘this is us’ and we’re just going to play our game. I wouldn’t be silly enough to do that.
“I’ve watched them, I like doing that, I like seeing what they do tactically, and obviously I can pass that on to our players.
“I always look at what the other team does, and where I feel we can punish them, and hopefully we can make it tough for them.”
Over the last six games, Carlisle are ahead of Forest Green in the form table with 11 points from six games, while tomorrow’s hosts have ten. They sit third and sixth in that particular league.
In the one that matters – the table for the season so far – the Gloucestershire side have a seven-point lead at the top and have scored 48 goals (most in the league) and have conceded 21 (joint second-best defence).
Carlisle are 19th, eight points clear of the drop zone with 19 goals scored (joint lowest in the league) and have conceded 30 (12th best defence).
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