Stevenage defender says United didn’t look like scoring until Boro gifted them a chance eight minutes from time

Dean Wells says Carlisle United didn’t look like scoring before Stevenage switched off at a corner eight minutes from time to hand the visitors all three points.

Boro had matched their high-scoring opponents throughout Saturday’s League Two encounter only for Tom Miller to strike home the winner from 10 yards after the hosts failed to clear Danny Grainger’s corner.

Earlier Stevenage striker Brett Williams had been awarded a penalty after he was tripped in the box, only for Mark Gillespie to save his spot kick.

Wells was left disappointed with the result, Boro’s fourth straight defeat, after a defensive performance he believed was one of the best of the season so far.

“Very disappointing. The back four, I thought we were in control. I didn’t think that they looked like scoring,” Wells said.

“We had a bit of support from [Steven] Schumacher in there. But it’s a set piece. Horrendous. We can’t be conceding goals. We get told day in day out 60-70 per cent of goals in this league are from set pieces. We switched off and we’ve lost the game.

“The ball has come in the box, the keeper [Jesse Joronen] has got a hand to it. You’ve all kind of got your own man but you’ve got to get the ball. You can’t let someone have a free shot. You’ve got to be on it. You switch off for one minute and you lose the game.”

Wells believes the performance against Carlisle was an improvement on the one on Tuesday evening when Boro lost 2-0 at home to Mansfield Town.

Wells was on the bench for that game, but watching on knew what he was seeing was not good enough. Saturday, he says, was better.

“Tuesday, watching the boys and I don’t like to criticise, but the game was not good enough and everyone knows it was poor,” Wells said.

“But [against Carlisle] it was much better. We passed more, had a couple of shooting opportunities. Penalty, if we had scored that it could have been a different game and we could have gone on to win three- or four-nil.

“They’re the highest goalscorers but they’ve conceded [plenty] as well. We looked solid in the back four and one of the best games we’ve had as a unit this season. We wanted to get in behind them and play our game but it didn’t materialise.”