MK Dons 3 Carlisle United 0: There was a moment late in the first half that painfully underlined the fact that this was a game between teams speaking different languages. Callum Hendry received it and, with Sam Lavelle and Ben Barclay both advancing, the MK Dons forward checked, turned and suddenly found an acre of space.
As Lavelle and Barclay went the other way it brought to mind Geoffrey Green’s famous line from England v Hungary in 1953…except this was a case of two fire engines heading to the wrong fire. Without hoses. Or water.
The same could be said about United’s attempt to confront MK Dons in general. One side played the football, the other allowed them to, and the result was a big backward stagger after the tentative hope of progress following the Barrow victory.
And here’s the problem. It is not just a step back again, but the latest in a recent era of steps back. If it could be summed up as an isolated bad day, there could be talk of dusting down and moving on. Instead, it is Barrow that appears the isolated occasion right now.
Hence the boos and hence the fresh criticism, which came quite caustically from many supporters at full-time. Paul Simpson said he would rely on a “thick skin” amid the scathing reception to this 3-0 defeat and, on this evidence, one senses he is going to need it.
No case for progress was advanced here in MK Dons’ cavernous, fifth-filled stadium. Carlisle’s defending for the critical first two goals was painfully passive, and much of their own play was as blunt as MK’s was sharp.
In all, the gap between the sides in terms of ideas and fluency made the Blues look complicit in the outcome. That is the illusion created when one side is on it and the other is adrift to a concerning degree. As in 2023/24, United looked lumpen against a team drilled in a high-grade possession style.
Their own scheme looked a bad fit for the circumstances, once more. Their own attacking moments were occasional, more hopeful than convincing. The reaction from lots of the 734 travelling support, in their corner of Stadium MK, sounded like an expression both of dismay and of a little more patience eroded.
They’ve seen this film too often in the last 12 months. How about that change of tone that was supposed to come back in League Two? How about something significantly better than two away games played and seven goals conceded?
This bleak afternoon, under rainy clouds, unfolded 50 years to the day that Carlisle topped the entire Football League. No need to beat the current Blues with history’s stick. But the journey back to a newly successful era, under the Piataks, felt further from reach on Saturday than they, and we, would like it to be.
United's better moments were interruptions to the general picture. They had one inside the first minute, Daniel Adu-Adjei failing to tightly control Ben Williams’ clip in the box, yet from there Mike Williamson’s hosts, after three defeats in three, looked to build their possession game and paper over the risks that came with it.
They did this without aggressive objection from Carlisle, who tried to keep a containing shape but simply did not get in MK’s space as they had Barrow’s. The effect was that Williamson’s ball-players (ie most of their team) could express their game and United, although watchful initially, gave up too much ball, too much space.
MK’s initial dominance of play was largely in safe zones but the 18th-minute moment that cut Carlisle open was not. Aaron Nemane gave Williams a tormenting afternoon yet the entire structure of United’s left-sided defending failed them when, following a free-kick, MK sent their right-sided attacker behind the Blues back line, and his cross from space was volleyed home by Hendry – also in space.
Too easy, episode one. MK, in the lead for the first time in 2024/25, grew in composure, fluency and intent. Joe Tomlinson tested Harry Lewis, then Tom Carroll declined to shoot as Lewis had to smother another Nemane cross. It was, by and large, all in United’s third by now, and then nobody pressed Carroll, who promptly fed Connor Lemonheigh-Evans to send the speeding Nemane inside Williams to set up Alex Gilbey for a tap-in.
Too easy, episode two. Damningly, it was training-ground football, the idea of these sides as equals now in the bin. Lavelle, in for the injured Terell Thomas, needed to make a last-ditch slide to cost Gilbey another and though there were a few late minutes of belated Carlisle pressure, resulting in a couple of Harrison Neal shots and a Barclay attempt, the general pattern was a badly sub-standard one.
Barclay, on this occasion looking very much like a defender in midfield, was hooked and his replacement, the debutant Dominic Sadi, showed some immediate zest to the right of United's attacking shape. Jon Mellish powered a shot over the bar after Sadi and Adu-Adjei had linked at speed. Promising?
Deceiving, more like. United, as they had throughout their League One relegation season, did not enough look like they could get a handle on a well-grooved passing side and there were never any waves of Cumbrian attacking until it was too late.
Before then, Nemane had pestered Williams some more and belted a shot wide after spinning inside the wing-back on one occasion. Adu-Adjei was off-target after some positive Archie Davies work, and then failed to convert a decent Sadi cross, but one never felt Carlisle were building something you could set your watch by.
In the last 15, there were longer spells in MK territory, Sadi denied by keeper Tom McGill and a couple of nearly moments involving substitute Luke Armstrong. Yet his fellow attacker from the bench, Georgie Kelly, lasted just 12 minutes before his calf failed him: another sad sight of familiarity.
Nothing else resulted from United’s bluster. Then they gave up possession one more time and Tomlinson crisped the ball across Lewis and into the bottom corner, possibly via Ellis Harrison’s touch, for number three. Aaron Hayden’s block then denied Tommy Leigh a fourth. Small mercies. Infinitesimal mercies. No mercies, really.
Then came the whistle, and the soundtrack set by the 734 was one of burning dismay. United went down, and the flames, again, are higher.
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