Carlisle United 0-4 Cambridge United: what we learned

1 NIGHTMARE NUMBERS

None of these reflections are for the faint-hearted. They cannot be. But record the detail of Carlisle’s sorry direction we must.

First, the current numbers. Saturday’s defeat was a seventh in a row in the league – the worst such run since 2003 – and it has come with 19 goals conceded in that time and just six scored.

Carlisle now have the joint worst defensive record in the division, with 55 goals shipped from their 32 games.

United's defensive record is going from bad to dreadful (Image: Barbara Abbott)

The hiding at the hands of Cambridge was their worst home defeat since losing by the same 4-0 scoreline to Mansfield Town just over a year ago.

This weekend’s game continued an atrocious run of having scored just one first half goal at home in the league all season (Owen Moxon’s opener on the first day against Fleetwood Town).

It also prolonged a club record run without a league clean sheet to 26 games.

Since Carlisle introduced their January signings to the side, they have taken precisely zero points.

They have now failed to score in 14 of their 32 league games, and have conceded at least three goals in a match in six of 14 games since late November.

Need I go on…?

2 HISTORY BECKONS

Carlisle, you won’t be surprised to learn, are on course for a record-breaking points return if things carry on the way they are.

It looks very much set to be comfortably their worst ever effort in England’s third tier.

Their first campaign at this level, under the four-division system, was a struggle in 1962/63, but they still ended up with 35 points under the two-points-for-a-win method – 48 under the modern calculations.

United are on course for a historically bad League One finish (Image: Barbara Abbott)

Considering the Blues are stuck on 20 right now, matching that looks highly elusive.

Other seasons of struggle have included 1986/87, when Harry Gregg’s relegated side amassed 38 points: effectively the lowest Blues total at this level to date.

Then there was the last relegation from this level, in 2013/14, Graham Kavanagh’s side sinking on 45 points.

In 1995/96, they went down on 49 points, in 1997/98 it was 44.

So 18 points from 14 games are required to stop this being the club’s worst ever third-division season.

Whatever the circumstances or mitigations, that would write this team into Brunton Park ignominy. Saturday offered no hope that they can avoid such a fate.

3 TIPPING POINT

There is little need to get into the sorry detail of Saturday’s game without realising that something pretty significant is going to have to give at Carlisle in the fullness of time.

To some, that should be the manager’s position; to others, the changes must occur elsewhere. Paul Simpson, for his part, has pledged to fight on, and he recently received public support from the Blues’ American owners, two of whom (Jenna Piatak and Nick DeMasi) attended Saturday’s game.

Should that support remain, whatever the current and near-future results bring, it only points towards the alternative: a major overhaul of the squad, and Simpson being entrusted to carry that out and not spare the horses in doing so.

Paul Simpson has pledged to keep fighting as United's manager (Image: Barbara Abbott)

This is normally assumed anyway after a season of struggle but given some of the noises coming out of Brunton Park, it appears all the more essential, even just to restore some harmony.

In a club interview after Saturday’s game, Simpson suggested one player in the substitute ranks had refused to do some post-match running.

He also told the News & Star he was questioning whether some in the out-of-favour group wanted those selected to win as much as they should.

These are not aspects of unity, however much the Blues boss also said that quality still existed in his ranks.

A number of players are out of contract in the summer, and that will bring its own conclusion. If it has to be Simpson’s way or the highway, we are talking here about building the best part of a new team again, so soon after the January influx (which has, so far, produced modest impact at best, and certainly results-wise taken things backwards from an already retreating position.

It will be less the evolving of a squad than a large-scale renovation of it. Going down with lingering disgruntlement in the ranks will only be a recipe for more struggle and so, if Simpson stays, Carlisle may have to make their peace with starting all over again.

In either situation, or in other areas of the club deemed responsible, the Piataks’ version of accountability, this early into their tenure, will be a fascinating spectacle. Carlisle's hierarchies, since 2022, have not needed to come up with an idea other than entrusting Simpson to sort things and sitting back to watch the sorting take place.

More detailed thinking, one way or another, now looks more pressing.

4 CROWD SCENES

Carlisle’s progress from League Two strugglers to League One strugglers is, in the main, down to Paul Simpson, along with the players who performed so admirably last season and in the previous campaign's survival surge.

United’s increased crowds in recent times can also be put in no small way at the manager’s door.

Those numbers have remained at an impressive level even as the team have gradually and now convincingly resembled the worst team in the third tier with something to spare.

Crowd numbers are still good for a club in Carlisle's form...but Saturday was one of the lowest weekend gates of the season (Image: Barbara Abbott)

Nothing, though, can survive unstoppable downward momentum forever. Seven straight defeats will take their toll on any good feeling and between the last two home games, United have managed to shed 770 home fans.

Saturday’s overall attendance of 6,877 was still more than respectable for a team losing every week. It was, though, United’s second-lowest Saturday crowd of the campaign, only the Northampton Town game on December 16 bringing a smaller gate (6,744, on a pre-Christmas date that traditionally knocks a few off the total).

It was also a fair way off this season’s average of 8,336 – which, again, is an impressive number all things considered, and very much in the middle of the division, highlighting Carlisle’s potential and the support that was reignited by the Simmo-led revival of 2022 and 2023.

That momentum and the refreshing feelings it brought, plus the takeover, are no doubt still responsible for crowds refusing to plummet. Through his past body of work, Simpson, too, retains more respect than any other manager would when overseeing such a run of results. This reflects in the numbers still.

If the graph starts to point downwards in a serious and more lasting way, though, then that will start to talk its own language, and give those running United, at various levels, something new to wrestle with.

Flattening a dismal curve, as soon as possible, is crucial to avoid even the most re-energised of new fans feeling the Blues are a lost or anticlimactic cause again.