Carlisle United: new boss trusts players - and so should we

To which it’s only fair to respond by saying: give him a chance here. And also them. Why appoint him, or indeed any manager or head coach at all, if this is how limited you believe his skill set to be?

Perhaps some of the fledgling evidence at Swindon Town’s County Ground last weekend was a first, furtive step in mounting the argument. Yes, Carlisle can pass the ball. Yes, they can be encouraged to play a different way.

And of course it will take time, and training, and patience, and an acceptance that it is not going to be a completely smooth line between one method and another. At some point soon United will no doubt play their way into the sort of danger another side punishes more greedily than Swindon managed.

Biting one’s tongue at such moments might not be easy, try though we must. As ever the general state of play, in terms of form and the league table, will determine the exact shade of the wider mood.

Yet on principle there should be no climate of suspicion or doubt that what Williamson is going to try and do is fair or achievable because he does not have enough of the players. Just because Carlisle have done things one way, it does not mean they cannot be coached anew. If that was the case, English football in general would be stuck in the analogue age, rather than exhibiting the slick, super-modern style we see at the top level and in many lower ones today.

United are merely the latest club to trust that a different figurehead can implement change in that direction. Their options, put bluntly, were either to reinforce and tweak the general approach of Paul Simpson’s coaching, believing it was the only way for this particular squad, or to try on different clothes.

After the failings that led to a change at the top, United are right to look for a style of play with greater modern staying power (Image: Ben Holmes)

The latter is the route taken, and the way the existing stuff was playing out lends solid weight to the idea, promoted by the Blues’ owners, of doing something entirely new, and of trying to develop a style of play more in tune with the majority, and which might, crucially, have better staying power should United start moving up the way again.

If they did not believe it was possible, if they did not think there was a person or people out there capable of reprogramming the team to this extent, then it would have said very little about their ambition or scope for the club.

Thankfully their eyes are open and optimistic, and we should make ourselves think similarly about the players Williamson has inherited now. It is not disparaging to a club such as Gateshead to argue that, if they can be trained as such an admired footballing side over a period of time, then so can Carlisle – and, if necessary, with a cluster of the same players, including a few of those previously deemed to be unsuited to floor-football in the Williamson style.

Turning United was never a matter for the transfer window alone. It is a job of coaching, development, drilling, drilling, drilling. Why should we assume, to pick one example, that someone like Harrison Neal cannot adapt? Are we to conclude that a player who has climbed through Sheffield United’s ranks – a club that has spent serious time as a Premier League club along the way – is fundamentally at odds with a style based on passing the football, short and fast?

Ben Barclay’s professional grounding occurred at Brighton & Hove Albion, the same as Archie Davies. Josh Vela played much of his young football in the Championship. We could go on. These are not environments for clodhoppers.

Perhaps the most telling word in early conversations with Williamson at United has been “trust”. “We've got every bit of trust in those guys, and we know that they're going to work hard to understand it and to find the solutions,” he told me last weekend.

The argument that someone like Jon Mellish could not adapt to a more progressive style of play ignores his adaptability over the years at Carlisle (Image: Richard Parkes)

That trust was applied from game one, in terms of the message regarding what Carlisle should do with the ball, when and where. It was a head coach telling players – some of whom he’d known for a couple of days, tops – that he feels they’re good enough to try it this way.

And whatever Williamson does down the line, however he recruits to support his vision, nothing may prove as important as this. So let’s see, first of all, what the Blues can do with this trust.

Let’s see how some players respond to being told they are quite capable of performing like this, as opposed to that, in some cases for the first time in their United careers.

Let us have faith that a growth mindset is possible here. Let us believe, to pick another example, in Jon Mellish – not the first player you’d think of when imagining a smooth, pass-and-move floor-footballer, but someone who has proven himself, and disproved doubters, to a solid and recurring degree at Carlisle since 2019.

His appearance record, 228 and counting, is not that of a one-trick pony (Mellish as a pony? No, doesn’t work. Wildebeest, maybe). He has already grown considerably in his five years as a pro. Imposing a low ceiling on such a player now goes against what he’s done and also, evidently, what his new head coach – who knows him from Gateshead – believes he can do.

It may be that, along the way, there will be some “pain” in some quarters – a word Williamson used when painting early pictures at MK Dons – but we should certainly not dismiss players for being unadaptable before we’ve had the slightest chance to find out. There is a price for good coaching, Carlisle believe they have paid it, and the very least we can do is watch it take effect with an open, hopeful and positive mind.