Imagine if, just because something went badly once, we’d never try again. For one thing, many of us wouldn’t even be alive to read this. Those of us who made it would probably never risk watching Carlisle United or indeed football again.

And so, seamlessly, to the January transfer window, and the confidence with which United must approach it, very much in spite of recent events.

January 2024 was not, shall we say, a good way to make the argument for a mid-season overhaul. It said rather cold, firm and pessimistic things about the risks of placing all your hopes on 31 days or so of trading. It rammed home the notion that even a “step change” budget can’t cure all your ills in itself.

The results of that spell of shopping, designed to keep Carlisle in League One but instead hurrying their return to League Two and then to its nether regions, are not glowing features of the Blues today. Harry Lewis, the goalkeeper signed at expense from Bradford City, has lost his place in the team.

Josh Vela, an experienced midfield head, is out of starting favour. Georgie Kelly is bedevilled by injuries and his United career has barely begun. Luke Armstrong’s five goals since the start of the year is not the output of a club record signing. Harrison Neal remains a fairly regular pick, but not unquestioningly so. Jack Diamond's impact on loan was qualified, Seán Grehan's practically zero.

United's trading last January did not have the desired effectUnited's trading last January did not have the desired effect (Image: Richard Parkes)

After those incomings and January’s outgoings (Joe Garner, Owen Moxon, Ryan Edmondson), Carlisle’s prospects and their general quality worsened. The conclusion is that too much store was set on January by Paul Simpson, his recruitment colleagues and the club generally, and never must it be seen as such an assumed panacea again.

Well, yes…but also no. There is an in-between reading of this and it is certainly not one that advises Mike Williamson largely to leave January alone. The approach must still be deliberate and dynamic, with the idea of at least some major business to be done. The difference needs to come in other respects: not in the basic need for it, but in the accuracy of judgement and the more evident signs of new players helping to evolve the team. In this, the early impact of a new sporting director, Rob Clarkson, must be seen, likewise Williamson’s own touch in the department of talent spotting, early signs of which are available with the free agent arrivals of Tyler Burey and Kadeem Harris.

It is not that Carlisle shouldn’t do as they did in January 2024. They must just…do it better, not shy away from it. Clearly, there must be signs of growth long before then. The win at Salford City must be the first ripple of wider improvement, and we cannot get to the new year and regard the current side as, effectively, a lost cause.

That way further danger lies. It puts far too much pressure on the mid-season shopping period again. There must be more structure, more basis in the idea of United as a growing, survival-ready team, before they even think about adding new faces.

Either way, though, the Blues need not be bashful as they approach 2025. In League One there were only a limited number of clubs they were ever going to be able to outmuscle, even with the new Piatak resources. In League Two things ought to be different.

Carlisle cannot keep on collecting players, writing off mistakes of the past with another flash of their American owners’ card, but any avenue leading to salvation must still be pursued, and any advantage maximised. This may be the first January in the club’s history where they can elbow past a decent amount of particular rivals to get the players who can significantly lift them.

When you’re 23rd in the table, or wherever United may be on New Year’s Eve, that is not a place where there are marks on offer for leaving well alone. Talk of Carlisle “doing a Doncaster” – shooting right up the table in the second half of the season – is, right now, daftly premature. There are more reasons why they are in the foothills of League Two than why they might hit the heights along the way.

So let this inform what happens from here. If Salford (and Wigan, the week before) showed signs of a welcome new hardness about Carlisle’s defensive ethic, let that remain the guiding force initially.

Let January then fit them with whatever else is needed to make them more nightmarish to play against. Let them be that side, across the back nine, that are regarded as a nuisance, a fixture where higher teams, in close touch with their nerves, come a cropper. Let them underline this idea, several times, before putting anything else, such as the growth of “style of play”, higher on the agenda. Let that come in due course, once we know that Carlisle are no longer a brittle touch over a more sustained period.

United do not, it can be accepted, have a scintillating record of recruiting or plotting their way to much better in the second half of a campaign. The recent cases of seasons improving from the halfway point onwards are 2021/22 – the post-January Simpson revival – and 2017/18, when Keith Curle wrested staged improvement after a flawed start.

United improved after January in 2021/22 - for different reasonsUnited improved after January in 2021/22 - for different reasons (Image: Richard Parkes)

More often it has been a case of something good or decent failing to last the course: the stagger to the play-offs in 2016/17, the Sheridan/Pressley tail-off in 2018/19, the Covid-hit Beech decline of 2020/21, last season’s tumble from bad to dire.

On each occasion there was reason to hope that a good January could bring about decisive, season-defining improvement. 2021/22 had this effect technically, but it took a change of manager (Simpson) to unlock the best of what the window had brought: Kristian Dennis, Omari Patrick. In many other cases, the hope has backfired.

That 21/22 season in the round reminds us that many things need to be working, not just the transfer window club card, and that must of course be the case in 2024/25. But let there be no buyer’s remorse tugging back United’s sleeve.

Just because they didn’t shop their way to safety last season, they can still do it. In the right circumstances, in a better-planned context, it would be negligent to think otherwise.