Carlisle United No2 reacts to 1-1 draw at Chorley FC

The Blues toiled to a 1-1 draw at Victory Park and were fortunate not to lose to Andy Preece’s National League North side.

Assistant manager Skelton, though, preferred to highlight the fitness aspect of the evening rather than United’s sub-par showing.

“As a workout it was important lads got 90 minutes,” the coach said. “It’s probably going back into last year for the last time some of them got that.

“Was it a top level performance? No. Were the lads committed and did they work hard? Yes. Did we get the quality we wanted at times? No.”

Skelton said it was clear some players needed the 90 minutes they got against Preece’s side, who went behind to Jayden Harris’s goal before missing a penalty then levelling through Justin Johnson.

• Blues coach responds to Moxon speculation

Asked if the quality of Carlisle’s display had made manager Simpson’s selection easier for the August 5 League One opener against Fleetwood Town, Skelton added: “I think with experience – and the manager will decide, and is more experienced than me – you learn from pre-season not to read too much into things.

“You look for little things and pick the bones out of it but don’t read too much, because there are different circumstances and scenarios.

“I thought the game to start with was very ‘friendly’, probably like the ones you expect early on.

Dan Butterworth on the ball (Image: Barbara Abbott)

“Any time we upped the tempo we caused them a problem but we didn’t do that enough, and we have no complaints with the result, Chorley will be disappointed they didn’t win the game perhaps.

“We knew it would be a tough test. They had a good season last year, they’ll be expecting or wanting to do as well or better. Winning’s a good habit, unfortunately we didn’t do that and from our performance perhaps didn’t deserve to win the game.

“But there were some good things in it, a couple of players did themselves no harm, and some probably didn’t perform at the level they’d have liked.”

Skelton was pleased, at least, with the quality of Carlisle’s goal, scored by Harris after Taylor Charters’ assist.

• Jon Colman's big match verdict on Chorley FC 1-1 Carlisle United

“It just shows you, when we had that quality, which we have – and perhaps didn’t show it enough – we cut them open,” the coach said.

“We played the ball forward early, won a good second ball, had one or two minutes’ pressure, raised the tempo, a forward pass, a forward run and a good finish. Unfortunately we didn’t get more of that.

“It was a great ball from Taylor and a great finish from Jayden. To be fair to Jay I thought he made some really good forward runs, especially in the first half.”

“[In the second half…] sometimes you cause your own problems, the gaps from back to front were too much and we gave it away sloppily at times which is disappointing,” he added. “But that’s going to happen in pre-season, no qualms about that.”