Carlisle United's Paul Simpson on Wycombe Wanderers defeat

And the Blues boss says supporters “deserve a medal” for the way they have stuck with the club during their relegation season.

Manager Simpson, speaking after the 3-1 defeat to Wycombe Wanderers in United’s last home game of 2023/24, wanted to express his gratitude to the club’s supporters.

And he said it is crucial that he and his colleagues carry out the huge rebuilding job successfully.

“This needs a huge turnaround, a huge facelift to it all,” the manager said.

“Our biggest challenge is that when we start pre-season, we are in a stronger position, and when we start next season we are in a better position, because if we’re not, we probably all know what the consequences will be.

• Jon Colman's big match verdict on Carlisle's defeat to Wycombe

“We’ve got a challenge on our hands.”

Carlisle broke an unwanted club record by losing their 29th league game of the season on Saturday.

Against that, the Blues ended their Brunton Park fixtures with an 8,000 average home attendance – their best figure for 48 years.

United ended their home fixtures with another poor display (Image: Ben Holmes)

Simpson, after he and the team did a lap of appreciation, said: “At the end of the game it would have been very easy to get a barrage of abuse from [supporters], but I didn’t see one single person who stayed behind giving them stick.

“The truth is, we probably didn’t deserve [such a good reception]. I can only thank them for that because it would have been very easy to do something different. Massive respect to them for doing that.

“They have stuck with us through an horrendous season. To be taking the sort of crowds we’re taking away from home, and getting the crowds we have at home…they deserve a medal.

“I’m as disappointed as they are with how the season has turned out. The only thing on my mind is to make sure the recruitment ream and myself do everything we possibly can to give them something better.”

• Carlisle United striker 'made himself unavailable' says Simpson

Carlisle’s defeat to mid-table Wycombe meant they ended the campaign with just 15 home points – their worst league season ever at Brunton Park.

They conceded more poor goals to the Chairboys with Harry Lewis appearing at fault for the first before a shambolic second ended with Richard Kone pouncing on Sam Lavelle at close range.

“The whole game shows where we are as a group and that’s nowhere near where we need to be,” said Smpson, who admitted this has been the toughest season he has experienced in football.

“The goals are just shocking goals.”

On Wycombe’s first, he said: “I think it’s a group [issue]…a ball’s come into the box and you have to be prepared to go and head it, you have to be strong enough to deal with it, the goalkeeper’s got to come and deal with it.

“There were a lot of bodies in the way. I don’t think it was one player particularly but I just think it’s a simple ball into the box that if we’re aggressive enough, we deal with it. And we didn’t.

“We didn’t deal aggressively enough with the second goal, we didn’t work hard enough to stop the cross for the second or third goals, we didn’t clear our lines…there are so many individual, really basic mistakes that have cost us.”