GREG Abbott has demanded his Carlisle United side start putting League One’s middleweights to the sword – starting with Walsall.

The Cumbrians have a tendency to perform well against the division’s leading lights but come unstuck when they host some of the strugglers.

That schizophrenic form has seen a side capable of turning on the style to beat the likes of Huddersfield topple out of the FA Cup to Torquay and suffer a disappointing home defeat against Dagenham and Redbridge.

With struggling Walsall the visitors today, Abbott (pictured above) is calling on his side to stop slipping up against the division’s basement dwellers.

“I don’t need to be reminded of our form against those sides,” he said.

“It’s not something I can really put my finger on – I honestly don’t know why it is. We never prepare any different and our attitude isn’t any different either.

“The way I prepare my teams, we just want to go out there and be competitive, but for some reason our game doesn’t seem to be as suited when we play those teams near the bottom.”

He will certainly not be taking the Saddlers lightly – a wise move given a recent upturn in form that has seen them unbeaten in their last three.

“Even though they’re bottom, if you look at their team it is littered with good players,” he said.

“I’m surprised that they haven’t gelled and it hasn’t worked out for them.

“Something hasn’t quite worked out for them, maybe they haven’t got the rub of the green or something like that. But they’re a decent side.”

Abbott seems unlikely to change things too much from a disappointing but narrow defeat at Huddersfield. That was their first defeat in six.

“We think we’re on a decent run and we think with the resources we’ve got, we’re doing tremendously well,” he said.

“We’re not a team that can go out and lavish money on players in the transfer window like others can but I’m very happy with the squad of players I’ve got – I trust them and I like the way they go about their business.”