Carlisle United: After the joy and frustrations let's wish Gibson well

Otherwise, it’s the same story, here, there and everywhere. Player X believes a new manager can get the best out of him. Player X’s previous manager believes it was time for him to move on.

Player X’s new boss likes the look of his stats, his qualities, his attitude. Player X’s previous boss had seen all of those things and decided he could do without them.

At Carlisle’s level, a little above and plenty below, this is the identity of the majority of moves. One sometimes wonders how different the game would be if players, en masse, stayed put for longer, instead of moving this way and that, trading places, going sideways, swapping blue for red, red for blue, the same words in different places.

We’d have to find something different to write about for much of the summer, for one thing (and would that be a travesty?). An industry of representatives would be in crisis (again, would that…?) Football would once more resemble a sport rather than a trading cards convention.

And there's as much chance of that happening as the Premier League giving the great unwashed some more cup replays. So it goes on: observing this transfer, that move and that debate over whether he’ll do better with us than them, or them with us, and whether “there’s a player in there” who is suddenly going to emerge from his chrysalis at one lower-league club when he hadn’t at others.

With supposedly creative players in particular, nailing things in this department is like trying to catch a bubble. An inconsistent but talented schemer at one place might well turn out the same somewhere else.

How often, over recent years, have Carlisle had a creative force you could set your watch by? Nicky Adams comes to mind. Jamie Devitt at his best. Owen Moxon, in 2022/23, certainly. Not too many others. In most cases what you have is what they got from Jordan Gibson: a package of eyecatching quality, blended with frustration. A world of pluses, minuses, hopes and reasons to do what Kurt Zouma used to do in his spare time before it became unfashionable.

Why a player of Gibson’s quality, and his output at times, should be released after a top-scoring season can be a matter for argument. Why the regular best of the 26-year-od could not be elicited from August to April is a question different people will answer differently.

Paul Simpson will tell you that he gave Gibson more opportunities than any other manager, and also defied the urgings of his staff in order to retain him a year ago. Gibson himself, not that he’s said as much on the record, will doubtless feel his appearances dried up unnecessarily in the second half of last season.

Gibson provided the best day of last season, and his attacking stats outstripped anyone else at United - but the campaign ended in frustration (Image: Richard Parkes)

Who’s right? Who got the best out of him, and then who didn’t? Player? Manager? The wider team? The dressing room? The Paddock?

The search for the truth is easier to embark on than conclude. What was behind the hat-trick at Bolton – Gibson’s own purple form, invention and swagger, or the managerial favour and team set-up that led to it?

If it’s both, then what also led to the end-of-season clouds that saw Gibson carpeted over an Easter night out? His journey into an uncomfortable, indisciplined headspace, or the wider climate and decisions therein?

Can it also be all those things, instead of just one? In the end, a player has control over his own actions while a manager has the whip hand on the collective situation. Nobody would argue all parties played everything correctly last season. Equally, was one side of it crushingly at fault throughout, but the other always halo-innocent?

Doubtful. Discussions of this and differing degrees may be going on across the country as players move on, looking for nirvana elsewhere in their mid-twenties. United, when they make their next moves, will more than likely get someone about whom there were doubts at a previous club, and who hopes the fresh Cumbrian air and bright blue shirt of Carlisle can uncover something special.

Such is life. As Gibson moves on to Doncaster Rovers, the instinct is to wish him good things, as it should be with anyone who wore the shirt and gave well of themselves, which he often did. In 2021/22, after signing, the midfielder offered some otherwise missing spark to a largely floundering side. In 2022/23 his starts became intermittent but his quality, when it came, could still be match-defining.

In 2023/24 he delivered the best day of the entire campaign in a potent autumn when it felt like he was rising decisively to the level, making it his home. It didn’t turn out that way in the end, although the raw stats of his attacking efforts outstripped pretty much anyone else in last season’s squad.

Consistent creators like Nicky Adams at Carlisle's level are few and far between (Image: David Hollins)

Now it is Grant McCann’s job, not Simpson’s, to weigh those traits against the defensive side which seemed to furrow the brow of United’s boss. It is also to assess how best to tread the line of versatility which can be strength and weakness. It is a challenge for both boss and player, too, to see that he escapes the drag of last season and the emotional association with so much struggle (a task facing every remaining Blues player, in fact).

Carlisle’s job, needless to say, is to recruit so creatively and emphatically that Gibson isn’t missed. It’s to build a team with more substance than it’s had, and not be so grateful, at times, for a fleeting, shining light when there’s not much other illumination to be had.

Two games against Donny in 2024/25 will no doubt intrigue. I hope Gibson’s reception at those is fair. Ultimately he gave the paying spectator more moments of entertainment than legions of lesser performers have over the years. That should always be a core principle of our game and, for that reason alone, may he go well.