Blues boss Steven Pressley has defended his “false nine” system – and denied it is to blame for Carlisle United’s recent defeats.

The Carlisle manager has used the deep-lying forward strategy at a time he has been short of senior frontmen.

Both Jamie Devitt – suspended again this weekend – and Stefan Scougall have occupied the role in recent weeks.

Mark Cullen’s availability as a more orthodox striker could see Pressley adopt different tactics.

But he said the use of a false nine was not the reason Carlisle have faltered in their last two games against Crewe and MK Dons.

“If you look at Devitt, in his three games prior to me coming here had one goal and zero assists. As false nine he had two goals and one assist,” Pressley said.

“Statistically over the three games he’s actually performed really well!

“The disappointment [last week] was nothing to do with the false nine, it was that we conceded avoidable goals,” he added.

“I understand there’s areas of debate and everybody has their opinion - that’s why I love football.

“But the last two games in my opinion have not been decided by that, but by, one, we went down to 10 men, and two, we conceded too many goals.”

Pressley conceded that Carlisle must become tighter at the back again after conceding five in their last two outings.

That followed clean sheets in his first two games and then a 1-1 draw with Exeter.

Ahead of tomorrow's clash with Colchester, he said: “We’re always working together to improve [on that]. We have to get back to keeping the clean sheets that we did in the Port Vale and Cheltenham games.

“You keep clean sheets then you win games of football.

“Also, if you score two goals at home [as we did against MK] you have to win. That is a fundamental in my opinion.

“We have to get back to not losing easy goals.”