Carlisle United boss: We overcharged fans for Dundee United friendly

Carlisle’s pricing of £18 for adults for their only home game of pre-season had attracted criticism from some supporters.

And after the game saw an attendance of 2,853 – 738 of which were followers of the Scottish side – manager Simpson said the club had got it wrong.

“I'm a little bit disappointed for the supporters who've come in today,” said Simpson after Carlisle’s 2-0 defeat.

“I'll be honest with you, and I hope I'm not talking out of turn, I'm a little bit disappointed with what the supporters have had to pay to come in.

“I think we should have done something a bit better for them today and as a reward to them [after last season].

“Maybe that was a mistake – we could have said thank you to the fans and got some big numbers in here.

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“The whole place was flat and our performance was certainly flat. I’m not blaming the fans by any stretch; we just weren’t very good, it’s as simple as that.”

Newly-promoted Carlisle struggled to make any attacking impact on the game in their final warm-up match before the new League One season.

Goals from Louis Moult and Glenn Middleton gave Jim Goodwin’s Scottish Championship side a deserved victory.

Simpson, whose new signing Sean Maguire watched from the stand, said Carlisle’s overall display was a “wake-up call”.

He added: “Without a doubt it's a bit of a kick up the backside for us.

“It has it's gone fairly swimmingly over pre-season, and sometimes you need a little bit of a jolt and we got that today [through] the level of performance.

“I've got no problem losing the game, especially a pre-season game, because I’ve been involved in pre-seasons where you lose every game and you have a good start, and I've been involved in them where you win every game and you have a rubbish start.

Sub Dylan McGeouch wins a challenge as fellow home debutant Sam Lavelle looks on (Image: Barbara Abbott)

“So it's more about the fitness side of it. It's more about getting the level of performance, getting the level of understanding right…and unfortunately the performance wasn't very good.

“Fitness levels were OK, we're getting understandings with Hunts [Paul Huntington] and Sam [Lavelle] playing together [in defence]. I changed the shape so it gave me an idea of looking at other things as well.

“And there's a lot of things that we take from it. But the big thing I've taken is that we need to improve for next week.”

Simpson used the game to give Fin Back his first outing since he returned to the club on loan while Lavelle made his home debut in defence.

Carlisle, though, were sloppy in conceding both goals while they seldom troubled Goodwin’s Terrors defence.

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“We didn't really do it when we got into that final third,” added the Blues boss.

“We had a little couple of spells but that’s about it, and the top and bottom of it was they were sharper than us.

“They moved the ball better, they created chances better. And then we found it a long old slog today.

"We let ourselves down in the final third but we only had little bits of play, certainly not enough. Even the concentration...for the first goal we were arguing with the linesman because we thought the ball was out of play. It didn’t look like it was out of play to me on the video but we switched off and we weren’t concentrating.

"We tried a square pass, even though we’ve talked probably from the day I’ve come in about square and back passes causing us problems, but we did it and conceded the first goal.

"The second goal...for me I think the goalkeeper should clean everything out there even though I do think it’s a foul on him. I’d like to think that most referees would give a free kick there but I still think Tomas has got to be stronger.

"They are poor goals to give away and it’s a lack of concentration and a lack of focus and desire to go and do the right things.

"As I keep saying, thankfully it was a pre-season game and we’ll hopefully learn from it.”

Carlisle’s opponents were sharper in all departments as they prepared for the start of their own league season next weekend.

“I thought they were very good – they looked like a team who already played four competitive games [in the Viaplay Cup],” Simpson added.

“They had a shocking start with a couple of defeats and then have picked up lately and had a couple of wins and you could see it.

“You could see in their sharpness getting onto second balls, the way they moved the ball. We talk all the time that to be successful in any game you have to win your duels.

“I dread to think, and I’ll have to watch it back, how many times we lost duels. And there were spates of three or four together where we missed tackles, we lost tackles, we missed first contacts, we weren't onto second balls.

“And that's what football's about. I don't care what level you play at. I don't care whether it's a friendly or whether it's a league fixture, a cup fixture. If you lose that amount of duels, you're going to struggle.

“They had some good footballers and they just had life about them. We were seriously lacking in life today. It doesn't mean that we haven't got good players because I think we have. I think we've got some really good players.

“But we lacked that real spark and that energy about us and as a group of staff and a group of players, we've all got to get it back for next weekend.”