THREE days after enjoying a football education, Gary Liddle will tonight aim to put his learning into practice.

Hartlepool United lost 2-0 to West Ham in Saturday’s FA Cup tie and tonight get back to reality when Carlisle visit Victoria Park.

Liddle was man of the match at the weekend, up against Scott Parker, and he has nothing but praise for the West Ham man.

“I think Parker is the best player I’ve played against so far in my career, he doesn’t seem to be fazed by anything and he is so calm on the ball,’’ admitted the central midfielder.

“You learn off players like that and hope to take things into your own game.

“He just seems to stay in the centre circle and not break sweat.’’ Pools won their last league outing, seeing off Northampton and, with back to back away games to come at Brighton and Huddersfield, Liddle knows the importance of tonight’s game, when he will come up against his former Middlesbrough reserve team-mate Danny Graham.

“We said after the game on Saturday that if we take the workrate, endeavor and spirit into Tuesday’s game and the matches beyond that we will certainly push up the league,’’ he said.

“I spoke to Danny on Saturday morning. He said they are doing well and they have got quite an experienced team with Graham Kavanagh in there and they have obviously got Danny’s goal instincts.

“They will be dangerous but we are confident of winning and I think it’s good we have a game so quickly.

“The lads have to recover well now because I think we pushed ourselves beyond the barriers on Saturday, there was a lot of running involved as you would expect against a Premiership team.

“But we will get ourselves right and having another game will be good for us.’’ At two goals down to the Hammers, Liddle had Pools’ best scoring chance when his firm header was pushed over the bar by Robert Green.

“It was a great cross and I was surprised to get in there – I didn’t realise how high I’d jumped until the lads told me,’’ he admitted.

“Maybe I could have done better with the header, without being harsh on myself, but we look forward to Tuesday and look to take that performance into it.

“We need consistency, it’s a word that has been bandied a lot about the club recently but if we can take Saturday’s performance into Tuesday I’m pretty confident we will win.

“There’s been too many times this season where we’ve played well and gone into the next game and put on a poor show if you like.

“It’s what has made us into a mid-table team at the moment and we will be looking to produce some consistency and move up the league.”

Pools hope to add to their squad before the game, but with no fresh injury problems, boss Chris Turner could hand loan striker Liam Henderson his first start.