Last updated at 12:13, Tuesday, 01 December 2009

The decline can wait. Graham Kavanagh remains at the forefront of Carlisle United’s team and their encouraging surge of form, and the man who turns 36 tomorrow wishes to do so after inspiring the Blues to their third victory in eight days.

Graham Kavanagh

Few players were more influential in United’s triumphs against MK Dons and Norwich last week than Kavanagh, who supplied no fewer than five of the seven goals they took in those stirring triumphs.

Such is the player-coach’s welcome personal form that he will be asked to do so again when Hartlepool front up for battle tonight, with scant regard for his ageing limbs.

Greg Abbott has spoken frequently about the need to manage his veteran midfielder through a demanding season, to withdraw him from combat at certain intervals, but the Irishman’s recent performances – backed up by an enviable level of fitness – mean that to leave Kavanagh out tonight would border on the negligent.

Whether operating in an advanced role off the main striker or in more orthodox midfield territory, the former Sunderland and Cardiff man’s class has glowed in Carlisle’s last two outings and it drops to Chris Turner, the Hartlepool manager, to make a better stab at nullifying him than Paul Ince and Paul Lambert have managed in the last seven days.

Form can surge and dip, of course, and Kavanagh’s reaching for consistency comes in tandem with United’s pursuit of a regular stream of results that will carry them into League One’s top half.

A third straight victory tonight – a sequence that would be a first under Abbott – would be another encouraging step in that direction.

“We have won six out of our last nine games and that is massive progress,” asserts Kavanagh who, as a Liverpool fan, will have raised the broadest of smiles at United’s FA Cup third round draw to face Everton.

“As a management staff, coaching and players, everybody is focused not just on the next game but the next day’s training. It is about maintaining standards and how we are as a group.

“Confidence is a huge thing as well. It was difficult going into the Southend game in October off the back of a disappointing run of results, but we managed to get that win.

“Each game now we go into believing we can win. And that belief makes a huge difference in football.”

Among the most encouraging of Saturday’s facts was that their impressive showing against Norwich came at Brunton Park, when many of their most telling recent performances have come on the road (MK Dons, Chesterfield, Leeds).

Kavanagh recognises the need for their inconsistency on home turf to be zapped, for United’s uncertain masses to stroll down Warwick Road with a touch more expectation than hope.

In return for a regular raising of standards, the player-coach appeals for their full-throated support – and a few more bodies through the turnstiles than the 3,936 that viewed the dumping of Norwich.

“At MK Dons last Tuesday, it was interesting to see that their fans stayed behind them even when they were getting beat 3-0,” he says.

“Our fans are very passionate, they love the club and that is fantastic. That needs to be bottled a bit, and put across the right way.

“Anxiety can spread very easily but if they can get behind us, performances often go hand-in-hand with that. On Saturday they did, and it was great to be able to reward them with a victory and a very good performance.”

Abbott’s selection issues tonight concern whether to stick with the patched-up side that performed so convincingly against Norwich, or find roles for the returning loanees Tom Taiwo and Adam Clayton in midfield.

Kavanagh’s place at the sharp end, however, seems assured, and the need for another win – to speed further away from their previous home league defeat to Swindon – is plain.

“I think a lot was made of the Swindon game – it was just 45 minutes of us not performing – but the result dictates everybody’s thoughts and feelings,” he says.

“We have put it to bed with two good wins on the bounce and two really gutsy performances.

“At the start of the season we would draw one, lose one, then win one and it would go on like that for a while.

“But in the last seven or eight games we have got some more consistent results and it is important now that if we can keep winning, we can jump into the top half.

“Everybody – directors, players, supporters – look at things differently if you are in the top half of the table. That is our next goal. There is a good feeling in the camp and that is what you want.”

Kavanagh may never again reproduce the quartet of assists he supplied at MK Dons a week ago, but a moment or two of similar influence will suffice tonight.

“I’ve never created four goals in a game before, but what was more pleasing was the way the lads showed great spirit and determination to get back in the game after we had lost our 3-0 lead,” he adds.

“We took that confidence into Saturday and we will do that again tonight. Hopefully the fans will get behind us in the same way.”

First published at 11:21, Tuesday, 01 December 2009
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk