Oldham Athletic 1 Carlisle United 2: On days like this it’s possible to wonder if the Carlisle United team that stank the place to high heaven against Swindon Town was actually Carlisle United at all, or if in reality it was a bunch of lads on a stag do who’d stolen the kits and sneaked onto the pitch.
Compare that, with this. Go on, try. You can’t. The difference is extraordinary, the feeling transformed. Remarkably, it’s only two weeks since most of us were resigning ourselves to a plummet through the National League, past Maidenhead and Wealdstone and the rest and towards the sort of reckoning that might, on some level, have finished off the Blues.
Now, largely the same players are winning three games on the spin, coming from behind to rabbit-punch a direct rival, launching themselves six points clear of the gutter and producing the sort of away-end scenes you normally associate with genuinely successful times.
The obvious question, then: what’s your secret, Simmo? Yet it’s also the worst question, since it won't much be answered. The manager who has performed this dramatic uplift won’t have any talk of midas touches or statues or any of the other sorts of deification fans were discussing when it came to Paul Simpson on Saturday night.
He will, instead, do two things. One, divert the acclaim onto the players. Two, remind us all to put down the cans. This job isn’t even halfway done yet.
True, true. Let Simmo's wise counsel remain our guide. But, goodness me, how much brighter the landscape looks.
How much better this team seems. How much character it has discovered in itself. Simpson’s return has revitalised so many things, and certain adjustments he has made have plainly delivered immediate improvement, but let’s take his lead on this one, and also praise those players.
Now they’re capable of coming from behind to win, something they haven’t done since last season. That brittle, broken young side of a fortnight ago are now showing spine, guts and some of the more delicate organs many felt they lacked.
Morgan Feeney’s 94th minute winner, which saw fans swarm like bees to United’s players in a corner of Boundary Park, was the moment of the season so far, trumping Tobi Sho-Silva’s clincher against Rochdale four days earlier, which itself overtook the utterly crucial win at Leyton Orient three days before that.
United must now leap on that six-point cushion like a trampoline and try to bounce even higher. With a dozen games to go, the romance of Simmo coming back to save them becomes that bit more realistic. Please, let them see this through now.
This mini-epic on Saturday saw Carlisle go behind in a moderate first-half showing before decisively stirring. Oldham have also been riding a wave under John Sheridan of late and this was never going to be a doddle for a side on United’s recent journey.
Other than the good chances they created early and late in the half, for Omari Patrick and Jamie Devitt, Carlisle were short of true emphasis against a tricky home side, who banked on the familiar crossing quality of Nicky Adams to erode United’s defence.
Dylan Bahamboula, in his white leggings, was an enigmatic presence for Oldham and United, despite Kristian Dennis’s line-leading, struggled to retain the ball for long enough. Oldham flirted with opportunities through Davis Keillor-Dunn, and then got the leg-up of a penalty decision from referee Sam Allison when he felt Dynel Simeu had handled an Adams free-kick.
The first act of United defiance came when Mark Howard got his legs on Keillor-Dunn’s penalty, but Oldham then did sink Carlisle’s spirits right on half-time, when another delivery from the left had Jon Mellish facing his own goal, and when the defender headed against the post, Jordan Clarke popped it back across and Hallam Hope turned it in.
It's the Hope that kills you. Or would have done, if we were talking about the pre-Simmo Carlisle. Instead, they rose. Their equaliser three minutes into the second half was a small masterpiece of focused pressing, proactive passing and ultra-confident finishing, as Patrick followed Jordan Gibson and Dennis’s groundwork with a swaggering low shot past Danny Rogers.
It was a thoroughly economical goal too, not a single breath or movement wasted, and spoke highly of United’s belief. From there, they kept the ball in the home half much better. Oldham still had their forays – Keillor-Dunn headed one good chance over – but they became more sparing.
United pushed themselves onto Sheridan’s team with the cohesion and growing certainty of a team that feels it can, after all, make good things happen. Patrick, a talisman right now, was a menace to Oldham’s right defensive side and, if his headed finishing was inaccurate, the rest of his output was high-grade.
In the 89th minute his invention created a chance which Gibson, through some ball-juggling imagination, very nearly garnished. Too soon, too soon.
Then came the 94th, and some admirably hungry front play from substitute Sho-Silva which drew a foul from Carl Piergianni. What followed ought to have its own display in Tullie House: Callum Guy’s floated free-kick, Feeney’s spring-heeled jump, the header that kissed post, bar and finally net – and those moments of mad abandon behind the goal which, in the mayhem, must have made all the months of struggle and stress feel totally worth it.
“They’ve shown they’ve got a bit of spirit about them,” said the manager of his players a few minutes later. “We’ve now got to have a bit of spirit for 12 more.” That this no longer feels fanciful in the slightest is Simpson’s biggest win to date.
READ MORE: Paul Simpson hails Morgan Feeney finale for Carlisle United at Oldham Athletic
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