Keith Curle admitted he was “absolutely gutted” by his Hartlepool United team’s showing in defeat to his former club Carlisle United.

The ex-Blues boss saw his new side lose a 1-0 lead to go down 3-1.

While United were celebrating a comeback victory that pushed them into the play-off places, Pools lost for the first time in four games since Curle arrived as interim boss.

And he said: “I’m absolutely gutted, because I know there was more fight, more noise and more aggression in the changing room than was in the Hartlepool shirts today on the pitch.

“That disappoints me. I saw it on Tuesday [in the 2-1 win over Doncaster Rovers] and it was there in spades, there in abundance.

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“We’ve had that win that everyone was craving – well, show me the passion for the second win.

“I’m not asking them to do anything complicated – I’m asking them to compete as a competitive unit.”

Curle, speaking to the Hartlepool Mail, felt his side were “lucky” to go in 1-0 up at half-time against the club he managed from 2014-18.

After Owen Moxon and two-goal Omari Patrick turned things around for the Blues, Curle added: “In the second-half we needed to be reliable, consistent and dependable in our decision making and our performances - and we weren’t.”

“I can take defeat, but I don’t think we lost in the right way. I don’t think we were competitive.

“If you need a win you do what needs to be done, but today we didn’t have enough players that did what needed to be done.”

Hartlepool are fourth bottom of League Two with one win from their opening 13 matches.

For Carlisle, meanwhile, they scored their first goals and achieved their first win against Curle at the fourth attempt since his departure from Brunton Park four years ago.