Keith Curle: 'We knew we couldn't play Notts County at their game'

Carlisle United manager Keith Curle has admitted that he had to change his usual tactics against Notts County because "we knew we couldn't play them at their game".

The Cumbrians took the lead against the Magpies in their League Two encounter on Saturday through Hallam Hope but Kevin Nolan's side left Brunton Park with a point after Ryan Yates struck an equaliser.

Assessing his side's performance after the 1-1 draw, Curle said he expected Notts, boasting height all over the pitch, to be such a handful that he had "to find a way to do things in a different way".

The former Notts manager told the official Carlisle site: “We played through them in the first half with the ball on the ground at a good tempo, and with a patient build-up, and I thought we caused them some good problems.

“Defensively we nullified the big centre forwards and by playing from the back we were able to pull them towards us and play through them. We needed to do that because we knew we couldn’t play them at their game.

“It was the first time we’d zone marked and the players and I thought we did it well. Man-for-man they were bigger in height than we were in almost every area of the pitch, and that means you have to find a way to do things in a different way.

“When we did go long to counter their change in formation we had Hallam Hope making a nuisance of himself, and then somebody there to help him out and land on the second balls. The positive we can all take from it is that they couldn’t get near us with the way we rotated the play.

“The negative is that we didn’t finish them off with the chances we had. I don’t think there’d have been any arguments if we’d gone into half time two or three goals up. Their keeper had made two great saves and we created some other good chances as well.

“We probably didn’t get the ebb and flow to our attacks in the second half and that’s why we made the substitutions. They’d started to play a little bit deeper and there wasn’t the space we’d had between the lines to get our players on the ball as much as we’d enjoyed before the break.

“They’d tried to press us in midfield before the break and we gave them a chasing with the way we pulled them about. That’s why they changed their tactics - out of necessity - and they pulled men back to close that route off."

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