ANDY RITCHIE has vowed not to let Town’s defeat at Carlisle hit confidence ahead of Saturday’s big FA Cup fifth-round tie at Chelsea.

His side were toppled 2-1 to end hopes of a fifth straight clean sheet.

Town dropped two places to 15th in League I, but the manager, who now has a doubt over nine-goal top scorer Luke Beckett as well as captain Jon Worthington, insisted: “We won’t let the lads take it to heart.”

Danny Livesey (20 minutes) and Danny Graham (76) scored from corners before stand-in skipper Rob Page pulled one back before a 6,196 crowd in Cumbria.

As Carlisle celebrated a club-record 10th straight home league win, Ritchie reflected: “I’m disappointed to have been undone by two corners.

“We’ve defended well of late, but this time, we didn’t deal with them.

“It took us a while to get to the pace of the game, and they’ll have been disappointed to have been only one up at the break.

“But I thought we were the better side for long periods of the second half, and we had two or three chances to equalise.

“But we gave away a corner because Matt (Glennon) couldn’t pull his hand away from a header quickly enough.

“Then we didn’t deal properly with the corner, because three or four of our own players went for the same ball.

“I can’t fault my team for their second-half performance, and they shouldn’t take this defeat against a very good side to heart too much.”

Beckett was listed on the teamsheet but forced to pull out because a back niggle flared up.

Andy Booth stepped in for a first start in eight matches.

It was the third time Ritchie has been forced to make an 11th-hour change this year after problems for Michael Collins (at home to Gillingham) and Frank Sinclair (at home to Bournemouth).

Ritchie added: “We’ll monitor both Luke and Jon Worthington (hamstring) and give them treatment over the next 48 hours. At this stage, it’s too close to call.”

Town reserves were in Pontin’s Holidays League Central Division action at Walsall this afternoon.