Carlisle United 3 Bolton Wanderers 1: Sigh. Soon all this fun will be over. There will be a run of defeats, a grumpy crowd, questions landing like hailstones and all those stresses that seem peculiar to Carlisle United.
Or…maybe there won’t. Maybe not this time. Pre-season victories should be nobody’s licence to skip down Botchergate with a belly full of ale and talk of open-top bus tours and civic receptions and #announcepromotion next May.
But they can still give you a guide. They can still make you feel. And what you feel when you look at Carlisle United right now is…things might be ok. They could, at least, be better than before.
READ MORE: Carlisle United 3-1 Bolton Wanderers - as it happened!
Three-one against Bolton in the July sun, no matter how impressive, might not be grounds for elaborate predictions. It’s certainly, though, reason to think Carlisle have been put on a cleaner path.
Not so much for the result, but its manner. It wasn’t so much a smash-and-grab against disengaged opponents as a display of substance against League One visitors who perhaps anticipated a lesser challenge.
United were muscular in intent and secure in shape. While this is an evolving squad – and this will not, being realistic, be a straight road to happier times – Paul Simpson appears to have players suited to his system and who are running for their lives.
That’ll do at this formative stage. Even if Crawley Town’s crypto bros put a pin in the balloon on July 30, you look at United with a sense of assurance that, broadly speaking, they are capable of htiting more of the right notes than last season.
There is a freshness of intent, not the same faint hangover of past times. United do not seem to have players ill-suited for their manager’s principles (which became apparent last year) or ones who are on some level tuned out. They are not confused as to what formation will be asked of them.
There will not, it seems plainest of all, be any kind of echo to the sorry opening to 2014, when United’s pre-season tactical scheme was abandoned after 45 minutes of a campaign which only grew more traumatic by the week.
This bunch, under Simpson, seem more drilled, more tightly wedded to The Plan. They seem to be buying into it, not that they have much choice in the matter. Simpson as standard-setter is obviously the best factor in all this and, on that basis, it’s easier to imagine Brunton Park as a place where fewer favours are offered, fewer gifts given.
Whether it will be enough to make Carlisle contenders in quick time is another matter. You can’t, though, put away a side like Bolton without hopes being fed. Once United soaked up the visitors’ expected early passing, and rode the loss of Morgan Feeney to a head injury, they applied themselves impressively to the task of threatening Ian Evatt’s visitors.
Bolton, in the end, flirted while United followed through. The Blues were ruthless on the mistake that came from Ricardo Santos in the 18th minute, Owen Moxon swooping onto the pass that saw Ryan Edmondson beat James Trafford with a cruising finish.
They were also, via the likes of debutant Fin Back, aggressive in the challenge and primed to go further. Bolton’s best work was neat, such as the corner routine that almost saw George Thomason level, and in the case of Kyle Dempsey, industrious.
Yes United anticipated most danger well, and then doubled their lead through persistence after a Moxon corner, and an opportunist Ben Barclay header.
Edmondson’s frontrunning was always tenacious, while Corey Whelan deputised soundly and determinedly for Feeney. Bolton halved the lead when Brennan Dickenson tripped Dempsey and Aaron Morley netted from the spot, but United scored again within seconds: Kristian Dennis poaching after Moxon and Jordan Gibson had prised the visitors open.
It spoke well of Carlisle’s ability (and fitness) to go again, if you don’t mind the use of that modern cliché. Substitutions drew the pace from things as the second half went on, yet Bolton rarely convinced when one imagined they would eventually throw a few stronger jabs.
Tomas Holy, on his first proper goalkeeping workout of United's friendlies, kept out an Elias Kachunga bicycle kick, having also blocked a Jon Dadi Bodvarsson attempt. Carlisle, though, also crafted chances they should have taken, principally Back’s fine cross for Dennis which the striker guided wide.
No matter. United, by then, had shown their mettle, and the closing stages were no worse than even, Nic Bollado ghosting into space to head a Jack Armer cross at Trafford, and at the other end Holy easily swallowing a Kieran Lee volley.
Bolton will no doubt fire things up when the League One season starts. On Saturday they looked a tidy team in need of some rocket fuel. Some of the urgency, in fact, that you saw in the dark blue shirts which were soaked in sweat that came not just from the emerging heatwave, but the effort and knowing toil of a Simpson pre-season.
Thinking – hoping – it all might translate into an acceptable season does not, at this tantalising point, feel like such a giant leap of faith.
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