Carlisle United manager Steven Pressley has lambasted the quality of Grimsby’s pitch and believes the EFL should act to ensure playing surfaces are better.

Pressley says the dry pitch at Blundell Park was “appalling” when United played there on Easter Monday.

The Blues lost 1-0 to the Mariners and while Pressley admitted afterwards that his team had not been good enough in the attacking third, he still believes the underfoot conditions, which he claimed suffered from a lack of watering, had some bearing on the game.

“The state of the pitch down there…it was appalling,” he said in his weekly press conference at Brunton Park on Thursday.

“I know some people will say it’s the same for both sides but it depends on how your side plays. If your side plays pure football, or tries to, it affects you more than the side that doesn’t. So I don’t stand by that argument.

“In this day and age, for a side to be in one of the top four divisions in England and not have an irrigation system on their pitch, I don’t think should be allowed.

“Supporters travel from Carlisle down to Grimsby – a long way, a long commitment – and they want to see a good game of football.

“In order to play a good game of football – one, the conditions of the pitch have to be good, and two, there has to be water on a pitch that’s had sunshine for four days.

“These sort of things shouldn’t be allowed in the modern game, to be perfectly honest.”

Pressley also believes the authorities need to apply a greater focus to such problems.

“It’s something the League should take care of,” the Blues manager added.

“It [football] is a business now that’s involved astronomical amounts of money, and we are looking at all different ways to try and improve the product for supporters.

“One way is the pitch has to be in the right condition to produce a good game of football.”

In response, Grimsby's stadium and ground safety manager Nick Dale told the News & Star the pitch HAD been watered, both in the days before the game and on matchday itself.

He also denied that the Mariners would ever deprive the pitch of water in an attempt to gain any tactical advantage.

He said: "Our pitch is one of the oldest in the EFL. However, despite this, it is in relatively good condition in terms of grass coverage compared to many other clubs.

"Unfortunately we do not have pop-up irrigation that will allow for the pitch to be watered after the players warm-up or during half-time.

"Despite this we still have means for watering the pitch in the run up to the match and just before the turnstiles open for the public to come in. These are huge water sprinklers that dispense a substantial amount of water over a set period of time.

"Further to that, we can confirm that the pitch was watered in the run-up to the match and on the day of the match.

"Our pitch is never starved of water as a means of gaining a tactical advantage, even though some clubs do use measures such as grass length as a way of preventing the visiting club from playing the ball on the deck.

"At the end of the day players adapt to the conditions and ours did, resulting in a long awaited win for our supporters."