Carlisle United boss Paul Simpson reacts to Barnsley defeat

The 3-2 reverse at Brunton Park was an 11th loss in the last 12 games for the relegation-bound Blues.

Simpson felt there were some positive aspects in United’s endeavours but conceded that the quality gap was once more significant.

“I'll say it again - it's just a difference in the levels that we have to aspire to get to, that’s the top and bottom of it,” he said.

“I think they showed when they stepped up in terms of their levels, we weren't able to deal with it.

“And again, it's the difference. It's a difference in the levels of a team that's pushing for promotion, with players who are able to push for promotion, against the team who are scrapping in a relegation fight.

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“And unfortunately, we have to be honest and admit that.”

Luke Armstrong gave United a tenth-minute lead with his second goal in successive games and his first at Brunton Park.

But Barnsley hit back through Jordan Williams, with a shot Simpson felt keeper Harry Lewis could have dealt better with.

John McAtee and Jon Russell then put Neill Collins’ side in command after the break with sub Dan Butterworth scoring a late consolation.

It leaves Carlisle 16 points from safety with nine games remaining, with relegation back to League Two more certain than ever.

It was a familiar story of a decent United start which they could not build on.

“We had opportunities after [the first goal] as well,” said Simpson.

“We had two or three breaks all down the left hand side, and whether it was a serious shout for a penalty on Jack Diamond I don’t know. But the player actually said to him, ‘I did catch you. I didn't mean it, but I caught you’.

“But the referee said it's normal football contact, whatever that means.

“But we had those opportunities in the first half to go 2-0 up, which we talk about – we talk about staying on the front foot.

“The pleasing thing for me is that we are starting games well, but we have to be brave enough to carry on and keep pushing ourselves forward. Which unfortunately, we're not, and unfortunately from the sideline, we're not able to affect it either.”

Barnsley celebrate their third (Image: Ben Holmes)

United shipped three goals for the ninth time in their last 19 games and Simpson admitted there were flaws regarding each of Barnsley's strikes.

“Certainly, I think there's things that you can do differently for all the goals,” he said.

“It was the same on Saturday [the 3-2 defeat at Charlton Athletic].

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“We are leaking goals really badly. And we need to address it. We've tried to address it by going with three at the back. But we're getting ourselves far too stretched because we're not brave enough to step forward.

“We're making the gaps between front and back too big. And it makes it tough.

“The equaliser…I thought we'd dealt with the first ball into the box and we’d cleared our lines, and then we're not able to get out close enough to get a block on it. And it takes a bit of a deflection off Dylan [McGeouch].”

Simpson said his side had “gone into their shells” after such a setback.

He added: “It’s a massive psychological thing, because it's certainly not the game plan.

“At half-time I said, ‘We're having a problem, because we've got our front two chasing to go and press ,and the gaps are so big between the back line and the front, that we have a choice to make – we’re either going to all go together and we're going to press or we're going to sit off’.

“And they said to me, ‘we want to go together’. I said, ‘Right, let's do it’. And so that's what we asked them to do from the start.

“We went away from it, and we let them back into the game. But then you get done by bits of quality.

“They've got that quality that we didn't quite have, and we haven't had for a long time.”