Defeats for Carlisle United this season have been rare – two in the Papa John’s Trophy, one in the League Cup and one in League Two.
The second of those Papa John’s defeats came on Tuesday at Barrow and manager Paul Simpson is adamant it won’t affect what immediately lies ahead.
Having reached the play-off places on Saturday United now have three important League games in quick succession, starting with Leyton Orient at home tomorrow.
On the eve of the Orient clash Simpson said: “You have to be unhappy when you lose. We can’t change it now, all we can do is make sure we do learn from it.
“It definitely isn’t a case of brushing it under the carpet. We’ve had a discussion around it this morning and we’ve talked about what it is that’s got us into the league position we’re in now.
“It’s now a case of what comes next. What do we do about it now. We can’t change it, we’re out of the Papa Johns, but now the focus has to be on a brilliant week ahead.
“It’s Orient first, then it’s Stockport and Tranmere. Orient are one of the early pacesetters this season, Stockport are one of the most fancied because of the bigger budget, and Tranmere are one of the form teams.
“We have a chance come the end of this month that we could be in a really good position. That’s the only thing we can focus on now.
“I went away and analysed what I’d done ahead of the Barrow game, and I thought about where I could have done things better, and I fully expect the players, because they are professionals, to have gone away and done that as well.
“I’m always disappointed when I make a mistake, but all I can say is that I make every decision for genuine and good reasons.
“I never do things because it makes my life easier, and I always do what I think the right thing is. I said to the players this morning that I’ve made mistakes all season, but they’re the ones who have gone out and covered that up for me.
“Unfortunately on Tuesday I made mistakes, the players made mistakes, and we didn’t cover for each other.
“We’ve got ourselves into the position we’re in because we’ve been really together, we’ve worked extremely hard and we have real ability in there.
“At Barrow it didn’t quite happen and what we have to do is make sure we build on what we’ve done and think about what it took to get a win away at Hartlepool and Grimsby, and what it took to come from 3-1 down against Rochdale.”
