Jack Iredale admits Carlisle United need to “switch on more” at the back in order to avoid more setbacks.

The left-back accepted the Blues’ defending was not good enough when they conceded the crucial opener to Cheltenham on Tuesday night.

Iredale insists United’s players all have full belief in the style of play demanded by boss Steven Pressley.

He also believes they are not far away from producing much better results.

But the ex-Morton man says they must help themselves better.

On Cheltenham’s 15th-minute opener, when a corner routine saw Gavin Reilly find space to head home, Iredale said: “We’re away from home and we need to be switched on at all moments in the game.

“You’re going to need to defend more than you would at home. It’s a lesson we’re going to have to learn from.

“As a defender, you hate conceding full stop. But a set-piece…we’ve worked on set-pieces and for it to come in that manner, it’s a no-no.”

Iredale’s second league start for United saw them suffer a third straight league defeat and they must now aim for improvement against Salford at Brunton Park on Saturday.

Carlisle struggled for the rest of the first half at the Jonny-Rocks Stadium and, after going 2-0 down to Luke Varney’s strike their better second-half display did not produce a goal.

Asked why they found it hard after conceding the opener, Iredale said: “It threw us off a little bit. We were trying to chase things, maybe force the final pass.

“When we did what we know we’re good at – passing the ball around, keeping a high line, putting pressure on, winning second balls – we looked like a completely different team.

“We created four or five goalscoring opportunities that on any other day we score all five. But it just didn’t happen.

“We defend as a team and attack as a team. We need to give everybody in the team a platform to go and score goals and win games. When you’re in at half-time at 2-0 it makes it really tough.”

Although United have lost three of their opening four league games, Iredale says they are trying to play the game the right way, and results will come.

He said: “We’re all fully behind what we’re trying to do here – we just need to get better at it. We’re going to do that. We’re going to keep pushing towards our goals.

“We’re a tight group. We’re all really good guys. There’s not one bad egg in the team and everyone wants the same things, everyone’s driven-minded, similar-minded. We’re gonna get to where we need to be – we just need to do it now.”

Iredale, who replaced Jon Mellish at left-back after a pre-season injury, says he is looking forward to putting things right against league new boys Salford this weekend.

He said: “The coaches will give us what we need to recover and be in the right state to go out and do what we’re good at. I’m happy the game’s in only a few days.

“Every game we go into we have the mindset of winning. No matter how we’d been playing, even if we’d won the last two games, we’d be going into Saturday wanting to win the game.

“What we need to do is what we’re good at. If we do that we’re an incredibly dangerous team.”