Big is beautiful!

The strapping 6ft 3ins centre back was expecting to face man mountains every week, admitting, psychologically, he was expecting players to be bigger because of their aura.

However, having come down from the top flight, Carlisle is finding the Clarets often tower above their opponents in the Championship - which is shown in the number of goals from set plays and crosses Burnley have scored so far.

And he feels it is an area the side can continue to profit in: “I hadn’t noticed that before, but as the weeks are going on this season, we do seem to be drowning out a lot of sides.

“I consider myself to be one of our better headers, and on Tuesday night I’m marking Leroy Lita – and no disrespect to him and his heading prowess, but I’m six inches taller than the guy.

“Surely there’s someone taller to mark! But that’s just the way it is, and hopefully we’ll take advantage of that. That should lead to more set piece goals for us.”

Infamously, Burnley failed to score from a corner last term, but have four so far in six games, and he added: “We do work at set plays. We’ve done it ever since Brian came in, and that was for half a season last year, but we never bore the fruits of that.

“We have done this year. I can’t put my finger on why because it’s the same level of quality of delivery, we’re attacking it in the same aggressive manner but we’re just getting the breaks.

“The timing of the runs are better and as you’ve seen with the finishes the headers have been good.

“We’re very happy it’s happening now, and long may it continue.”

Taking advantage of dead balls is crucial, giving you an option to hurt teams even when not at your best, and Carlisle - who won a point at Ipswich with an injury time header from a corner, would love to chip in with more goals: “It’s very important. In successful sides you usually find you’ve got your 20 goal a season striker but you’ve got maybe four or five other players on half a dozen each, and that’s what propels you to success. And hopefully with the height we’ve got in the side – when we see the line-ups of the other teams we really do drown some of them out – we should be capitalising on set pieces.

“There will be a mis-match in one area of the pitch and we need to make sure we find where that is.”

It’s fair to say Burnley haven’t been at their fluent best so far, although they have bossed possesion in games, but Carlisle makes a pertinent point: “We’ve played a lot of football thus far this season. In some matches it’s broken down in the middle third. In the last two matches I think it’s been in the final third where there just hasn’t been the finishing touch on the move. But what people have to take into account is this is the Championship. It’s not an indictment on the quality in there, it’s a statement on the type of football played, and in the Premier League where teams stand off you and give you space to bring your best, it’s not like that here.

“Teams close you down, they close your space down, they make sure you can’t play football. Especially if there is an ethos for that, like at Burnley. Teams will set up to either put in two banks of four and make sure you’re not productive in the final third at Turf Moor, or away from home they’ll just get in your faces and they’ll drown your space all over the pitch and make sure it’s not conducive to a football match.

“People have to take not of that and give the boys credit for their attempts to play good football, but also give credit to the fact that we can have a plan B and a plan C and go and get goals in another fashion when the game doesn’t allow us to do it in the style that we want.”