CARLISLE United and Brentford meet for the first time since April’s Johnstone’s Paint Trophy final, but Us boss Greg Abbott insists that neither side can afford to look at this afternoon’s League One clash as a Wembley rematch.

Carlisle were victorious six months ago, when Peter Murphy scored the only goal of the game to bring the trophy back to Cumbria.

But Abbott is more interested in the future than the past as he looks to keep United within reach of the play-off places. And he expects Brentford to adopt a similar attitude.

“I don’t think the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy final defeat will even come into their thinking,” said Abbott. “It wasn’t a feisty game and I don’t think they’ll hold any animosity towards us.

“To them, it will be just another game that they want to get three points from, like we did after Southampton beat us in the 2010 final.

“More importantly, we’re on a run of just one defeat in four games now and we want to keep working on improving that and keeping ourselves up there.

“We’ve said before how important it is to get a good run of home form going and we’re starting to show signs of doing that. In the last match at Brunton Park against Stevenage we were really dogged and showed a lot of determination which helped us to get a positive result.”

Carlisle go into the game in tenth place in League One, two points behind Brentford who are immediately above them.

And the Us are also just three points behind Sheffield United, who occupy sixth spot and the final play-off place.