What we learned from Carlisle United's defeat to Cambridge

1 THE EARLY BIRD…

Carlisle have, on occasion this season, reaped the benefits of late goals (and they’ve also been hurt by them – see Portsmouth away).

May that quality remain part of their occasional arsenal. Yet something else is eluding United, and it was highlighted at Cambridge.

Early goals. Not against the law to score them, yet Carlisle are currently almost entirely incapable.

Dan Butterworth rues his early miss (Image: Richard Parkes)

They could, maybe should, have led inside two minutes at the Abbey Stadium, but Dan Butterworth passed up what turned out one of their best chances.

Very rarely in this League One incarnation are the Blues able to pounce when a game is still warming up.

Their earliest strike is Luke Plange’s 19th-minute effort at Lincoln City, while of their 13 league goals so far, just four have come in the first half.

When was the last truly early goal the Cumbrians scored in the league?

You have to go back to April 7 for the most recent time they netted inside the opening ten minutes – Kristian Dennis’s third-minute effort at home to Tranmere Rovers.

Carlisle picked up a few other early strikes en route to promotion in 2022/23 (Dennis at Tranmere and at Salford also come to mind) yet it’s another of the challenges proving much steeper this time around.

A small detail, maybe – but the Blues have to be primed to pounce whenever a chance comes, given they are coming along less often. Right now it’s a void.

2 SHOT SHY

After the positivity of Tuesday’s win over Burton Albion, this was a case of Carlisle reverting to their less potent qualities on this third-tier journey.

At the Abbey Stadium they failed to score for an eighth game out of 16 in the league.

Six teams have fewer goals than the Blues’ 13 so far, but their scoring trend so far is not improving enough to give confidence about a consistent climb - or to dissuade anyone from feeling serious attacking reinforcements will be needed in January.

Jordan Gibson shoots in vain (Image: Richard Parkes)

Indeed, Saturday saw them drop into the relegation zone and it clearly didn’t help that they failed to muster a single shot on target.

That is an indictment of their efforts against a side who, before kick-off, were 17th and without a league win in eight.

It is the second time this season Paul Simpson’s side have failed to get an attempt on target (the August defeat at Oxford United was the other), and an expected goals figure of 0.36 (source: FotMob) reflects a meagre day, creatively.

United can also be criticised for their efficiency given that six of their eight shots in the game were taken from inside the penalty area, yet none forced home keeper Jack Stevens into anything resembling a save.

Sometimes stats don’t tell the full tale. This time, though, they shine the light needed.

3 LOSING IT

Paul Simpson bemoaned United’s “turnovers” during the game and it is undeniable that Carlisle failed to retain the ball as well as their hosts.

Again, the numbers lean to Cambridge in this regard. According to WhoScored.com, the home players were dispossessed seven times compared with United’s 12.

This appeared most prominent initially when Carlisle were struggling to make the ball ‘stick’ in attack during the stage when the hosts started growing into things.

Owen Moxon on the ball at Cambridge (Image: Richard Parkes)

It then infected more of the Blues’ play as their midfielders, and at times defenders, coughed up possession too simply.

One such moment led to the only goal of the game and Carlisle simply have to put a higher price on their ball retention if they are to limit danger.

Cambridge were not the most formidable side the Cumbrians have faced in 2023/24 but Mark Bonner’s men did, in the end, show more variety in their play.

They began by focusing on the left, where Sullay Kaikai was an early weapon even if his final ball was often poor.

In the second half, the U’s then figured out that the right side was a fruitful patch, and the combinations of James Brophy and Liam Bennett were far more threatening than anything Carlisle mustered.

The Blues, other than those very early attacks, showed little imagination in their passing, too often favouring long deliveries and certainly not hurting Cambridge in wide positions.

All in all, a display with more shortcomings than you can ever hope to get away with.

4 BEN BACK FOR BACK

It cannot have been ideal for Carlisle to lose Fin Back from their planning some 20 minutes before kick-off.

We will never know whether a fit Back would have given United any of what they lacked at the Abbey Stadium.

Such a simple conclusion, though, would probably be unfair on his deputy, Ben Barclay, who stepped up for his first league start of the season in Back’s stead.

Ben Barclay came into the side for the injured Fin Back (Image: Richard Parkes)

Barclay is a centre-back pressed into full-back duties and as such is not the most enterprising in the position.

What he is, though, is a generally reliable and diligent defender and, if Cambridge found gaps at times on the left, it did not become an avenue that seriously hurt Carlisle.

Barclay stuck to his task and it is not as if the more familiar personnel on the other side of the pitch stepped up particularly well.

Indeed, Jack Armer did not have an effective game and his two yellow cards, and subsequent red, summed up a performance which saw Cambridge raid decisively down his side – an area Carlisle as a whole failed to shut down.

Barclay did not get to the byline as Back occasionally does, but on average he still operated higher up the pitch than Armer.

That’s a tribute in part to Cambridge’s dynamic left side, but also Barclay’s general output on a day where he had to step up for the cause against more than one tricky opponent.

5 LEADER OF THE PACK

Paul Huntington is back to fitness and likely availability this week but, as Paul Simpson said, his return to the team cannot be a given straight away.

It gets highlighted less in defeat but there was another example at Cambridge why Simpson may keep his veteran club captain waiting.

That example is consistently Sam Lavelle and the quality of his defending, which appears to grow in authority by the week.

Sam Lavelle, third right, impressed again (Image: Richard Parkes)

Lavelle seems comfortable in a back four and also as the leadership figure in that unit.

Against Bonner’s side, he was in the right place umpteen times and made three times as many clearances as anyone else in the Carlisle side.

Authoritative in the air, Lavelle appears to be showing some of the qualities that made him such a prominent player in Morecambe’s promotion days and which made him appealing to United in the summer whilst he was out of favour at Charlton Athletic.

Cambridge’s winner was one moment the Blues could not cut out, though an arriving midfielder was plainly untracked by those higher up the pitch.

Lavelle, otherwise, kept the back door well bolted and continues to grow into one of Carlisle’s better players this season. For any of the criticism over other summer signings – and results continue to reflect how hard United found recruitment after promotion – this appears to be one they got right.