“It’s a new chapter,” says Luke Armstrong – and, if you are looking for Carlisle United player particularly glad of this fact, the striker seems a good place to start.
After being limited to substitute appearances this season prior to Mike Williamson’s arrival, it’s now one league start and one goal – plus a feeling that, under his former Gateshead team-mate, Armstrong and United can finally now push on.
Armstrong capped Williamson’s first game in charge with the clinching second goal in the 2-0 win at Swindon Town. The striker’s name was sung by fans and, all in all, things felt better than they have for a good while.
“It’s the start of a new chapter now with the new gaffer and the lads want to buy into it,” says the frontman. “It is, to be fair, exactly what we've asked for. He gives us so much information and it makes it so much easier out there.
“Obviously, it was only two days [before the Swindon game] and he's trying to get in as much [information] as he can without overkilling and giving too much that we end up freezing.
“It’s worked to get the result. I’m sure he’ll want to work on some parts of the performance but I'm sure he’ll be delighted with some of the parts that we tried. The main thing is we tried what he wanted and what the gaffer asked of us. It's just such a good feeling to get a win.”
These are, naturally, the very early days of a change in approach, Williamson being the United hierarchy’s pick to refresh their style of play as well as, hopefully, improve results following last month’s departure of Paul Simpson.
Asked if he believes Williamson and his coaches can unlock something both in him and the team, Armstrong dwells further on the clarity of the instructions from a man he knows well.
“Yeah,” he says, “because they try and make it as simple as possible for us. They give us the messages and then we know exactly what we're going to do.
“I have no doubt and belief in the players that we've got. We've got good players, everyone's said it a million times. We've got a good squad, we've got too good of a squad to be where we are in the league, and now there's no excuse because we're going to have a good system in place.
“We've got a good manager and we're going to work hard for him. We're going to instil his ideas and hopefully that will get us the results, and I have every belief that we're going to do that.”
Armstrong, 28, was a young striker on loan from Middlesbrough when he played in the same side as the veteran defender Williamson at Gateshead in 2018. That time left a positive and lasting impression.
“We’ve kept in touch at times [since then], and he's a great guy,” the striker says. “He helped me a lot when I was at Gateshead, and helped a lot of the lads. He was always going to be a manager based on how he was and the information that he gave.
“I was delighted when he got appointed [at Carlisle]. I know a few of his coaching staff too, they're all great people and we really want to do everything we can for them to get us up the league and do well for them.”
Swindon was a good start: only a second win of the league season and a hard-working, committed start to the Williamson era. After Sam Lavelle forced the opener, Armstrong showed sharp instincts to score the second (watch below) with a shot that home keeper Jack Bycroft pushed onto the post before the ball crossed the line.
It was only a fourth goal for Armstrong in a United shirt since his January arrival from Harrogate Town – and the first that has featured in anything other than a defeat. No wonder his smile was broad and his relief clear at full-time.
On the slow-motion wait for the ball to go in at the County Ground, he says: “I was swaying between emotions because I thought the keeper had saved it at first, but after it hit the post I’m thinking, ‘It can only go in from there’.
“I'm looking at the ref and wondering what he was thinking, as I was wheeling off the other side. When he blew his whistle, I was like, ‘Has he given a free-kick?’ Eventually, he gave the goal…and I was just absolutely delighted.
“It's been a long time coming. I needed a goal and to come back and get a goal on my first start was brilliant.”
Armstrong’s work-rate since he joined United has been undeniable but all strikers, not least those with reputations such as his, always need the hard currency of goals.
“It's almost like a relief feeling,” he adds. “You need to get that first one of the season. What I’ll always do is work hard – grafting and hoping that something falls for me, which has happened a lot over my career.
“Goals like that one, little ricochets, a bit of luck, I seem to be in the right place. It hasn't quite happened here yet, but hopefully this is the start of it and I can get a lot of confidence from it.
“There’s a lot to work on in the performance, but it's been a while since I've played [from the start], so I just need to get that sharpness again. I'll gain that confidence from a goal and a win.”
The feeling from Saturday – the win, the feeling it generated between team and fans – was that Carlisle can grow from it. The emotions afterwards must be recaptured now.
“You play football to win and it's not the same when you're losing games,” Armstrong agrees. “We're absolutely delighted, and delighted for the fans because there's not been much to cheer about [recently] and we can't complain. They've been absolutely brilliant. They've stayed with us and hopefully this is the start of the next chapter and we can really kick on.”
United, at Swindon, had to survive persistent early pressure before their goals changed the shape of things. Getting out of a rut of defeats was never going to be achieved easily.
“We fought for our lives,” says Armstrong. “It started off like [you might expect] – it's always going to be tough, because they [Swindon] have got a good crowd, they get the crowd behind them and they're a good team. They have a good style of play and they caused us problems at first.
“We had a little jiggle [in terms of shape] and it seemed to get us a bit more on the front foot. We were getting in behind them a little bit more, putting a bit more pressure on them, because everything seemed to be a little bit in front of them for the first 15-20 minutes.
“We started to get runners in behind and stretch the back line a little bit, and I thought that really helped us – and that's what got us a corner. We were good from set plays, got two goals from set plays, and it's always good to have that in the locker, because we've got some big units in there. Obviously, you need a little bit of luck, which I think we had as well.”
Armstrong, in the post-match shakedown, was many fans’ candidate for man of the match, not least for his industry at the front of the team. While Harry Lewis, as Carlisle’s last line of defence, was outstanding, Armstrong showed a different kind of defiance in Swindon’s half.
“You find that, when you haven't had a win for a while, you have to really grind it out and that's what we've done,” he adds. “The second goal gave us a lot of relief and also gave us that boost to keep working hard.
“Everyone grafted, everyone was knackered but that's what it takes to win a game – and we really want to work hard for the gaffer and his staff, because they give us all the confidence in the world.”
That c-word appears vital to what United and Armstrong do from here. A long period of losing, and a lack of goals, must erode confidence but ideally a fresh start, launched with a cathartic win, can have the opposite effect.
“Yes, you gain confidence – but then you've got to back it up,” Armstrong says.
“We've got to work just as hard [this] week and then we'll have more time with the ideas that the gaffer has of what he wants us to do. There’ll be more time to work on that, really polish it.
“It's going to take time but there were moments [at Swindon] where it looked really good. I feel like it's only going to get better.”
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