Bristol Rovers 2 Carlisle United 1: Carlisle’s form is so bleak, so relentlessly bad, that it’s tempting to regard a narrow defeat as a win, a better performance as a victory, a small negative margin as a positive. Which, in some way, this was. But also emphatically wasn’t.
A loss is a loss is a loss, Just as relegation will soon be relegation with a capital R, whichever way it can be spun over these remaining games. United came closer than they have for a while, but still had to bend the knee to a better Bristol Rovers team. Result: same again.
The reasons they lost were still bad, even if the mitigation was broadly greater than it had been during the Cambridge debacle. The home team’s deciding goal saw Carlisle outstripped in the making and taking, and the Blues’ efforts to fight back brought the familiar tang of failure.
And if this is a cold interpretation of general improvement, so be it. United must of course leap upon the good things they did at the Memorial Stadium, must use the brighter signs as grounds to think they can get some – any – momentum at Burton on Tuesday.
Yet nor can anyone fool themselves that they’re on the way back. Not yet. On the intermittent occasions they have taken the lead in League One games this season, they’ve failed to protect that position for long enough.
So it was here. And from the point of Bristol Rovers’ equaliser, the home side were the likelier winners. Not by a chasm, not by a landslide. But they remained a more convincing third-tier side than Carlisle and, over the full piece, that tends to be the case.
Paul Simpson felt there was enough in United’s display to regain some “respect”. Carlisle were indeed better in their shape, offered more threat, forced more opportunities. This was progress after the Munch’s Scream of a second-half display the previous Saturday.
A team that looks remotely capable of operating steadily at this level, though, still refuses to present itself. This much we know. Perhaps the day this run ends – as end it will, eventually, although who knows when – the mood will lift and the results graph will go with it.
Until then, it’s just different shades of the same colour. Bristol Rovers’ old heads, Chris Martin and Scott Sinclair, provided the definition for the hosts, as did Jevani Brown with an audacious piece of skill which opened an always fragile Blues side for the equaliser after Josh Vela’s Carlisle opener.
As Simpson conceded, Carlisle don’t have players doing this sort of thing, not nearly enough. Hence their position, which hurts the eyes the more you look at it.
This ground, back in the autumn of 2021, proved the last stand for Simpson’s predecessor-but-one. Much has changed since Chris Beech walked out of the Mem and towards the sack. There were no particular portents of the same this time, Simpson receiving more patience and grace even as this League One struggle goes further down its dark road.
Saturday’s scheme designed to offer even a speck of light saw Taylor Charters and Fin Back recalled, Jon Mellish restored to the defence and the latest array of fruit salad-clad players sent onto Bristol Rovers’ patchy turf to try and cover some of the many flaws at last.
Signs, at least, there were. Carlisle were more competitive and tighter in their 4-4-1-1 shape and in Jack Diamond, playing behind Luke Armstrong, there was a degree of evidence that a talented player might be growing back into some kind of confidence, even if the end product was wanting.
Against a home side who did not radiate assurance after four home defeats in five, Carlisle initially attacked with width and hope. They forced a corner after 36 seconds and, unlike the previous weekend, sustained things better in a largely even first half.
At the defensive end there needed to be good discipline and bite to prevent the hosts supplying Martin. James Wilson and Martin headed crosses wide under pressure, but Carlisle carried some decent fight upfield, where Diamond’s quick feet looked like they might open doors.
After Harvey Vale wasted a reasonable Rovers position, United’s relative adventure led to the opening goal. A cleared corner was returned from the right by Jack Armer, the ball was glanced on, and Vela watched it onto his laces before volleying firmly past Jed Ward.
Impressive technique – and the kind of position Carlisle craved. But not one they could sustain. There were chances for both in the aftermath, Vale denied after a Scott Sinclair backheel, Armstrong firing a first-timer wide, Sinclair denied by defenders, Charters hitting the outside of the post...
Yet then it was level as Brown, with a flash of ingenuity, dinked the ball over Sam Lavelle, the Blues man left as a fire engine going towards the wrong blaze. Against the backpedalling Blues, it was then efficiently about Brown’s cross and Martin’s volley across Harry Lewis: a consummate finisher back in the familiar act.
Back then had to dig a home cross away from the six-yard box, before Charters and Armstrong gave notice that the Blues had not given up on their own attacking ideas. They could not, though, convert them. Early in the second half, a Charters corner somehow stayed out despite Armstrong and Mellish’s close-range efforts. The difference in conviction was then presented in the 52nd minute as the hosts evaded a Harrison Neal challenge, Brown glided into space behind him and Sinclair then lined up Back, stepped inside and thwacked a shot high past Lewis.
In response, Jordan Gibson tried a few things without great success, and the home side appeared more purposeful, finding Elkan Baggott in acres at a deep corner, Brown almost sneaking a way through once more and the blue and white quarters pressing hungrily, high into Carlisle’s half.
You feared another collapse. At least that didn’t happen but, again…small mercies indeed. Diamond almost revived them with a break through the middle but ran out of fuel. Then, after the double introduction of Jack Ellis and Dan Butterworth, Charters retrieved a corner and saw his cross break for Neal…who sliced wide from the D.
On it went. Lewis kept hope alive by pushing a Sinclair shot against the post, Martin fired wide late on and, in added time, Lavelle volleyed past the post for Carlisle, whose knife was blunt for the umpteenth time, the team’s progress to League Two continuing, as Martin might have it, at the speed of sound.
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