A 3-0 defeat at Forest Green was a reality check for Carlisle United manager Keith Millen.
His verdict on the latest performance at the New Lawns, confirmed both improvement and some lack of progress.
Speaking to the club website he said: “I felt this was a good test to see where we were, and we’re not a top team yet. I didn’t expect that to be the case, but we’re also not a bottom team.
“We’re a team that’s in transition, that’s been on a good run, and that needs to learn from this – and we will.”
Unfortunately Carlisle weren’t able to build on a positive start but were unable to exploit any openings that came their way.
Millen said: “I thought we were ok in the first half. We started the game really well and the lads were putting into practice the tactics we’d talked about, which we felt could take advantage of their openness.
“I felt that worked really well and we got into some good, dangerous areas. We had plenty of one against one situations, but we didn’t punish them.
“There wasn’t enough end product and we gifted them a goal. It was a really sloppy goal, from nothing, but despite that I thought we were the better side in the first half.
“I thought we looked more in control and more effective. Again, we’re talking about end product, and for the areas we’re getting in we don’t look like we’re threatening enough, but we keep saying that, don’t we.”
“I was disappointed to go in a goal down at half time,” he continued. “The way we conceded made it a really poor goal from our point of view.
“When they scored the second we went back a little bit to being too open and too exposed, and they punished us. They showed why they’re top of the league and why they’ve scored so many goals.
“They’re clinical, and that was the difference in the game. They were stronger and better than us in both boxes and they took their chances. We were far too open, and that’s not us.”
