Bristol Rovers caretaker manager Andy Mangan was full of praise for his 10-man side’s desire after earning a hard-fought 1-0 win at Carlisle.
Sam Lavelle’s own goal before half-time proved to be the difference as Rovers, who extended their unbeaten run in all competitions to five matches, rose to 10th place in the League One table and United dropped to 22nd.
The Pirates went a man down in the 73rd minute as Tristan Crama pulled back Terry Ablade to deny a clear goalscoring opportunity, but they held on for victory.
“I’m delighted for them to be honest,” said Mangan, who has overseen three wins and a draw since taking interim charge following the sacking of Joey Barton.
“Their endeavour, their hard work, their desire to see that through after the sending-off is amazing. The lads deserve all the credit that they can get.”
The winning goal came in the 38th minute, when the returning Jack Hunt’s cross took a wicked deflection off opposition defender Lavelle and looped into the net.
Mangan said a change of shape played a key part in securing all three points.
“I just felt we could hurt them in wide areas,” he added.
“I think in the first 20 minutes you saw some really decent chances for us on the counter, when we hit them on the break.
“Jack Hunt was getting crosses in wide. Harvey Vale was then landing on them because they play a four. So the change of shape actually helped us.
“I thought we were a little bit more dangerous on the counter-attack and also, because they’re a little bit direct, what we could do was catch their long balls and then pick up a few more balls in the middle of the park with the three in the middle. It went to plan, thankfully, in the end.”
Carlisle boss Paul Simpson described the decisive goal as a “horrible” one to give away, but was keen to avoid blaming the result entirely on bad luck.
“It’s those fine margins that we keep falling on the wrong side of,” he said.
“There’s other things that we need to concern ourselves with, rather than just that.
“It’d be wrong to just look at that and say we were unlucky because you have to make your own luck.
“We’ve had 23 crosses into the box, we’ve had 10 corners, we’ve had six free-kicks, we’ve had five long throw-ins. We haven’t got on the end of enough of them. We haven’t troubled their goalkeeper.
“And, the big thing for me, we have to get to a mental state where we’ve got a desire to go and score goals and to get on the end of things.
“They’ve had some decent bits of football – I’ll give them that – and they’ve got some good footballers in there, but they haven’t troubled us a hell of a lot in terms of our goal.”
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