What should happen at Carlisle United? I haven't a clue

There are many other places you can go for a take on what’s going on at Brunton Park and, crucially, what needs to be done to put it right.

You might read the News & Star for your fix. You could listen to other podcasts such as the excellent Brunton Bugle. You may read, or vent, on X, on Facebook, on thebuzzisback forum. You might tick this option in that poll, you might post that comment under this article.

Having an opinion, and expressing it firmly: it’s within us all to do that. Just about everyone has a weighed-up thought on what would fix United’s problems, and almost everybody has one that can fit neatly into a tweet or a Facebook post.

Well, so it seems. But maybe that’s not quite so overwhelmingly the case. Maybe there are other people out there, and, quietly, lots of them.

So let's speak up for that silent mass: the great confused. Those who genuinely haven’t got a clue what would be for the best.

Stick me in that camp proudly today. Anyone else like to join?

Paul Simpson's team are struggling after seven straight defeats (Image: Barbara Abbott)

I know, I know. This is a cop-out, normally a sin for a journalist. But let’s try the other view: why should journalists know best? Why should we, on top of all the reporting we do, actually possess the answers?

Imagine one of us actually in charge, making these calls. Don’t make me laugh. Fairly recently this country had a former newspaper columnist as Prime Minister. Yeah, that went great.

Instead, there is occasionally merit, and indeed a certain nobility, in standing on the sidelines shrugging one’s shoulders. If you find yourself exhausted and confused by all the opinions and arguments out there, about whose job is tenable and who needs to fall on which particular sharp implement on offer, this approach is increasingly appealing.

Many of the current squad got Carlisle up, now they’re taking them down. So are they great, or useless?

The present manager kept them up, got them up and is now taking them back down. So is he great, good, unfortunate or on the way out?

The current recruitment set-up built a team for promotion, now it’s constructed one for relegation. Does this make them proficient or faulty, victims of circumstances or authors of them?

Faith in Paul Simpson has long been unquestioned, now in some quarters it’s being questioned. Which is the right way, to what extent, with what mitigation?

I think I know what I think. But in all truth, I’m knackered thinking about it, let alone trying to work it out beyond doubt.

There are thousands of different opinions out there (Image: Barbara Abbott)

Football is today more than ever built on analysis and micro-facts, different shades and varying degrees of light. Looking at the game takes the eye onto a more complex yet also more emotional beast than ever before. And there are more platforms on which any of us can stand to declare our interpretation of the world we have been peering at.

Yet we’re still the lucky ones: those whose views don’t have to translate into actual decisions. We aren’t paid to execute. As much as we have passion, and close connection, we don’t have skin in the game, as Nigel Clibbens’ favourite academic, analyst and philosopher, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, would put it.

Our opinions don’t directly pull levers. Yes, the mass and movement of voices is important, and can be powerful, but it doesn’t determine who gets appointed as manager next, for instance. It doesn’t, in itself, lift P45s out of the cabinet or make declarations of boardroom faith.

Lucky us. Unlucky them. This is not a time to envy the chiefs at Brunton Park on any level, although nor is it a moment to pity them: making good calls, setting strategy, timing decisions...that's what they’re there to do.

So let them make the right ones, and let us be relieved it’s not us. And let us not, in the cacophony of views - from thoughtful to thoughtless and everything in between - lose sight of the idea that sanity sometimes lies in dialling out, not in.

Occasionally, the only way to free some space between the ears isn’t to go on a podcast, write another 700 words, compose another forum screed or gallop onto social media in pursuit of the iron truth of the matter.

It’s to say: No idea, mate. I'm absolutely jiggered with it. Fancy a pint?