Mark Hughes post-match interview

Seemingly, we only won because of poor refereeing decisions (and a dodgy pitch!)!

About what you’d expect really. Both penalty decisions could’ve gone either way and I think we’d be saying the same if it was the other way around.

Ultimately, though, we did batter them on the day. Should have run away as comfortable winners with another goal or two at the very least.

I thought when the ref blew after Wright’s challenge in the first-half it was to award a penalty and was mightily relieved to see him signalling for a Town free-kick. Having watched it back a few times though it looks like a cynical dive; contact isn’t even close to being made.

The handball is harder to say - I thought at the time it was Wright’s arm that stopped the ball, and it’s hard to see from the replay. On reflection, I’m not sure if our pen looks a bit soft - JDS jinks round their defender and then seems to go down. Again, tricky to see from that angle - might get a better view from one of the match day vlogs later on.

In general though I thought the officials were poor, yet again. The ref seemed to have no concept whatsoever of the advantage rule, blowing up to give a free-kick when each side had a promising break underway, and the lino on the Findus side routinely didn’t know which way to award the throw. She did get the first-half offside call right however; haven’t seen the second-half one back.

Refs at our level are consistently excrement- but would you want to be one? I know i wouldnt.

He’s not wrong about our pitch though

Overall we where the better side, pitch was the same for both sides.

Officials where the level that we see most weeks, that level being national league at best..

Hughes, complete failure of a manager.

JDS was looking to draw the foul but if you lunge in like that when in your own box asking the ref to make a decision you're asking for trouble. I'm pretty miffed when I see our own players go in like that in our own box. Would have to see the one with Wright from a better angle behind the goal to know if there was contact but it looked like a dive from the camera angle. If the ref is also looking at it from that sort of angle it likely looked a dive to him too. Bare minimal contact at best and Hugill made it look so dramatic.

Recruiting forever -miserable Hughes would finish me off as a Carlisle fan. Most depressing face in football.
Stats count, Mr Hughes. Attempts on target: 8 to us, 1 to them.

For however the ref was poor, it was a pleasant change that the bad officiating went our way.

I think just the fact that we scored more goals than them would be the only reason we won and they lost.

He cant use the pitch condition as an excuse because we hate it as much as they did. Its not like we practise on a surface like that before a home game.

The be all, Mr Hughes, is you have sunk to the levels of taking the money, and expect your bottom of the league group of crap players to play like Barca, and sadly they dont and never will.

Enjoy your few months in charge