Carlisle United 0-4 Cambridge United: Jon Colman's verdict

This is an apology of a League One side, to be frank and also to be kind. Against Cambridge, the Blues managed ten good minutes but many more familiarly bad ones. Four goals later, seven straight defeats later, 13 points adrift later, it was a group that looked lost, broken and all the other things that make you wince when thinking about your team.

This is, also to be blunt and to be realistic, manager-threatening territory. Anyone other than Paul Simpson would more than likely by feeling a chairman’s hand on his collar by now. Simpson, rightly to many, gets more licence than that, more respect and time, and may yet do so. Judging by his post-match interviews, there is certainly no inclination from the man himself to look over the precipice.

Yet whatever one’s take on that matter, wherever you or the club happen to be in the conversation nobody would like to be happening, Carlisle’s problems are fundamental and, right now, growing. The team that came up after such a wonderful Wembley fiesta are heading back down at record-breaking speed, and looking so much worse than they have done at any point since Simpson returned two years ago.

Sullay Kaikai's shot beats Harry Lewis for the Cambridge opener (Image: Barbara Abbott)

Cambridge’s goals, in sequence, emphasised the disarray and highlighted why Carlisle are swirling towards the plughole. Their first stopped a decent Carlisle start before it had truly taken effect. Their second was slapstick and shameful. Their third drained all hope and the fourth was embarrassingly simple. Neil Harris's team forgave Simpson’s side by not taking an easy late fifth.

All the way along, United’s old faces and new ones failed, failed utterly, to put together anything credible for this level. That second goal was the collapse in miniature: Harry Lewis, the season’s fourth goalkeeper, signed at expense last month, dumping a cross against Sam Lavelle’s head, assisting the captain’s latest own-goal of the season.

Seriously: where do you go from there? How do you pretend, from that point, that things can be anything other than wretched for the present and immediate future? How can you believe the turnaround is coming, that January’s recruitment has made things better, that there’s not just “fight” but sufficient quality to sort it?

Jon Mellish and Lyle Taylor clash (Image: Barbara Abbott)

You can’t – not now. In the future, maybe, through belief in United’s bright new owners and the potential of a summer overhaul. What happens before then, though, will shape fundamentally how Carlisle fall back into League Two and whether they bounce or keep on tumbling.

This was, all in all, as despondent as the infamous Swindon game of 2022, only a division higher. Before Saturday’s grey skies fell in, Carlisle produced a first ten minutes to measure with the best of their season. Alas, that’s what it was: a good ten minutes. A drop in the ocean, soon submerged.

What was it, that vibrant opening spell? A fragile gesture at best. Carlisle, briefly, looked like they might floor Cambridge through sheer energy. Harrison Neal set the tone with some powerful midfield challenges, Jordan Gibson was a scampering threat from the right. The home crowd roared in noisy desperation for it to pay off.

Josh Vela broke into the box, went down under George Thomas’s challenge – no penalty. Gibson smacked two shots into defenders, Neal thundered into a challenge denying the visitors a break. Twice, Cambridge players went down and stayed down, as if it was their only way of defusing the Blues. Imagine that.

Jack Diamond on the attack for Carlisle (Image: Barbara Abbott)

They then hit upon the other method: to attack United. It normally works. In their first proper foray, Cambridge found a home side unable to stay tight enough, then Sullay Kaikai lined up Jack Ellis, worked the ball past him and into Lewis’s bottom corner.

Down came the rain as Carlisle’s optimism washed away. For the rest of the half they were back to being a struggling team trying and failing to find something. For Cambridge, James Gibbons and the wily Lyle Taylor almost profited from a confident spell. There was some end-to-end stuff, but never with conviction when it was at United’s feet.

Debutant sub Anton Dudik makes a run (Image: Barbara Abbott)

Passes or crosses for Luke Armstrong were not precise enough, runs from others did not find a suitable delivery. Cambridge, through Kaikai and Elias Kachunga, fashioned more opportunities that came with unconvincing endings. Danny Andrew, with a whipped free-kick, went close to a Cambridge second, and a long move of Carlisle possession summed up the Blues’ restored uncertainty: the ball, in the 41st minute, going sideways, backwards, across ways and then finally, painstakingly, to Neal, whose pass over the top was easily escorted behind for a goal-kick.

Then the second half. Good grief, the second half. A few United runs, mostly by Gibson, yielding nothing. Some agitation from both teams towards the referee. Anton Dudik, the Ukrainian wild card, played from the bench in the 64th minute. Then a ghastly second goal: Kaikai given room to cross, it slipping soap-like from Lewis’s gloves, clanging off Lavelle’s head and into the net: OG number three of the campaign for the skipper. Only one man in the squad has scored more in a Carlisle shirt in 2023/24.

Players react after Cambridge's third goal (Image: Barbara Abbott)

Next, Taylor got free and crossed for Kachunga to convert a diving header. Many fans went home, in the 72nd minute. Dan Butterworth, unchallenged, shanked a cross into the Warwick. A while later, Ryan Bennett beat Lavelle in the air to head in a fourth. In added time, Lewis denied Adam May a fifth.

So it could, technically, have been worse. And it still could be yet. That's a cold thought indeed, with 14 games of this still to endure.