Why promotion idea at Carlisle United needs to be parked

“How many points are we out of first place now? I mean, come on…” the owner said to the News & Star when asked about this in the wake of Paul Simpson’s departure.

The answer, after four games, was seven; another game on and it is nine. “It does not change the goal at all,” Piatak went on. “And that's one of the reasons why the decision [on Simpson] had to be made so quickly.

“Right now, the goal is promotion, and we can turn this around, and we will turn this around.”

Piatak was speaking after three defeats and one victory, United having since tacked on another L. It remains, as he implied, frightfully early to be writing anything off; with 123 points still to play for, from a total of 138, why would anyone draw lines under anything – and why, certainly, would an owner lower the ceiling of expectation before we’re even at the middle of September?

That is not the Piataks’ way, that much should be clear from their wider activities as owners so far, and United, ultimately, ought to flourish for this ambition. At the same time, there is also an argument for shorter-term realism that would make it advisable to put the promotion target into the fridge for a little while.

Until hard evidence accompanies the belief that United have players and a team only on loan to the bottom reaches of League Two, the outlook will be harder and grittier. Before thinking of escaping the fourth tier again, Carlisle cannot look beyond being safe in it.

That might sound a limited aim indeed for a club with their resources and new horizons, but the critical demand upon the next head coach is, first, to stop losing with such frequency. Fail to do that soon, and promotion talk will drift into the realms of delusion.

Simpson’s fate is evidence enough that a season can go into dark places extremely soon. While there are no laws to say how you start is how you finish, there is also no precedent for a United team beginning a league campaign as badly as this one has and then going up by the end of it.

The ten times Carlisle have risen a division in their history, they’ve always made a better start than this – sometimes marginally, but more often emphatically.

The only promotion seasons that came remotely close to this one, in terms of how United kicked things off, are 1973/74, when they took a win, a draw and three defeats from their first five games (the equivalent of four points) and 1981/82, which started with a win, two draws and two defeats (five points).

United went up in 1973/74 after a modest start but there is no precedent for promotion after a record like the current side's from their first five games (Image: News & Star)

In the other eight cases, the smallest early return was seven points from the first five games, and the highest 13 (1994/95). United have also gone up after five-game starts yielding eight, nine and ten points, but never the current offering of three.

Those steering the Blues, trying to change its course, might think this a pessimistic reading but it does not serve United to live anywhere other than the real world. Ideally a new sporting director and head coach will oversee significant improvement, and Carlisle can soon find ways to put their difficulties behind them.

A refreshed outlook, a changed approach, could galvanise a squad many do believe to be better than their current standing. New momentum, backed by United’s large and steadfast support and the great belief in the Piataks, could make them a force again.

Chances are, though, it won’t come simply and it’s more often the case that a side who launch a campaign like this one has to sip some more medicine before things truly get better.

There have, believe it or not, been 13 seasons in United’s league history when they’ve put less on the table from their first five games. Not a single one of those occasions has produced a top-half finish.

The best they have mustered after a notably false start was 12th place out of 22 in 1968/69, after Tim Ward’s Blues took two points from their first five games. Otherwise, 16th is the highest finish they’ve mustered when starting with zero, one, two or three points (or the equivalent, in the pre-three-points-for-a-win days) from their opening quintet.

On six of those occasions, they’ve in fact been relegated and if that notion would be scoffed at by some right now, Carlisle must not imagine it cannot happen, however good they think their squad is and however positive the wider picture may be.

It is easy to get on board with the changes United’s owners are seeking to make and also to understand that the long-term ought to be served by the structural alterations leading to an overseeing figure (sporting director) as well as a head coach.

The Piataks have big ambitions on and off the field (Image: Richard Parkes)

These moves, along with the desire for a more attractive style of play, ought to manoeuvre United into more modern shape. Provided the people chosen for those roles are right, Carlisle could reap lasting benefits. The first changes, on principle, to the football side executed by the Piataks since last November's takeover appear to have the same good intentions as the incredible infrastructure transformations already seen and in the workings.

Long-term aspiration is both essential and real. The potential remains remarkable. It must simple hold hands with the biting reality of the here and now. This is a side, a club, that has after all lost 34 of its last 51 league games, won merely eight of them and conceded 91 goals in that time.

There may be different contexts within those statistics but this is the momentum they must halt, and instinct says it will require a turning circle of reasonable size, rather than an immediate 180-degree spin.

Prove this theory completely wrong, and these words can be ceremonially burned from the top of the civic centre as United celebrate promotion next May. I’ll bring the matches myself. Yet, all in all, a less dramatic but still reassuring change of direction may be enough to settle for, after the difficulties of the recent weeks and months.