Carlisle United Season Preview 23/24

After the worst possible season in League One, Carlisle enter a League Two season as perhaps the most difficult side in the division to attempt to place. The prediction blogs from others fluctuate wildly betwen landing in 5th and challenging for promotion to 17th and aiming for a season simply of recovery. Where exactly is this side going to land?

This season serves more as a trial for Carlisle United as to their path. Rather than a cogent analysis, they require almost a defence and prosecution and, as such, that’s the path we’ll go down…

The Case for the Defence

This is a weaker edition of League Two than last season: Take out Wrexham and Stockport, and you take out a pair of sides that were quite a bit stronger than the division. Take out Mansfield and you remove a side who have been consistently there or thereabouts for multiple seasons.

With those three out of the division, you then automatically look at who the obviously strong sides are - MK Dons and, amongside the relegated sides, Port Vale look probably the best equipped.

Every other side in the league, even those that many will tip to challenge strongly, have obvious question marks about them - is Doncaster’s late 23/24 form a true reflection, can Notts County deal with the loss of Langstaff, are Chesterfield really as good as some people think they are given Wrexham couldn’t win the league, on the back of a mediocre season, are Bradford really better, can Gillingham really score enough, are Fleetwood even less predictable due to off-field stuff and could go straight into trouble?

Carlisle sit in that pack, hence the nature of this season preview. It’s a pack where there may not be that much difference between the group and, as such, while you could make a fair guess at spots one and two iin the league, third place is absolutely up for grabs between seven to ten sides across whom there will probably so small a gap that a blanket could be thrown over them at the end of the season. If you come out of games against that group as the best or second best of it, there is a strong chance for promotion.

Carlisle’s 23/24 was defined more by who wasn’t available: AKA the Callum Guy argument. Carlisle’s season nosedived once their most effective combative midfielder was out for the final six months of it. At the point of his injury, Carlisle United were in 21st and more than in touch to try to be a League One side beyond last seeason. If you consider Carlisle as that - a just-about-League-One side who have added extras but were undone by fate in spite of that - then they have a positive chance.

Compare that side in October 2023 to now and they are now probably stronger on paper - Luke Armstrong looked decent with little supply in the embers of that farcical season, a fit Charlie Wyke was solid at League One level last term and steps down, Georgie Kelly is actually fit so Carlisle fans can see how he’ll do and Dan Adu-Adjei is an interesting loan pick-up. For a side that struggled to score early last season, that’s now a very strong attacking roster.

In terms of the defensive disasterclasses that defined the swirl into the toilet of last term, things are stronger. Where last term the coping mechanism for Paul Huntington being injured was Ben Barclay and shifts in shape, there is now the numbers and quality in depth to be able to not have to switch shapes to cope. Cammy Harper is an excellent pick-up at left back, a fit Aaron Hayden is a quality League Two CB and you still have the likes of Mellish, a fan favourite who offers a lot with ball at feet, and Sam Lavelle, who is certainly a better player than last season suggested. While the midfield chemistry is still a bit TBD, this is a better side on paper than last season and a better side on paper than that which won the playoff final. 

If you subscribe to the view that Carlisle were unfortunate last term, then you’d be all in on them this.

There’s as lingering good feeling about the club: While Carlisle didn’t get a new owner bounce, as it were, the focus of the Piatak family has been putting in a structure that lasts. They could have thrown money to try to stay up last term, and did in part, but the big shift has been on things such as sorting out the training gorund situation, updating Brunton Park into a better facility. The fact that you can come out of a season where everythhing went wrong yet still have a positive feeling around the club because the improvements to it are so visible - the first six months of the Piatak era will very much be seen as the prologue to the real story starting now.

The case for the prosecution

Did you see last season?: Let’s not escape it - last season was a mess. Recruitment in the summer was sub-par, recruitment in the winter was too late. Defensively, the side were extremely poor and the recruitment of Harry Lewis in goals was a signing that went badly straight away with multiple mistakes. No-one could have had confidence in the defence, in the goalkeeper and, as a result, nothing could really get forward. Even when it did, until Luke Armstrong found his feet, the strikeforce was misfiring.

Carlisle at their worst last season would have been struggling in League Two. If there isn’t a marked improvement, that’s where they’ll end up.

Things get hard, early: Carlisle have had a pre-season that is slightly concerning but also slightly fine. A final friendly win over Stockport put a shine on two poor friendly performances against Rochdale and, especially, Gateshead.

Carlisle’s first five games are not really pleasant - opening up with a long away trip to Gillingham, who some see as a playoff side, isn’t ideal but the whole of Carlisle’s first six games aren’t what you’d have picked to try to get some momentum going. Away to playoff contenders, at home in a local derby vs Barrow (albeit a Barrow side that will flirt with the abyss this term), away to probably promotion favourites in MK Dons, at home to a bellwether in Tranmere who good sides will beat and bad sides will lose to followed by away at Bradford, who will carry expectation on them as they do every season (spiced up by a manufactured rivalry) and then at home to fellow relegated side Fleetwood. 12 point from those six games would be promotion form, whatever position it actually left the club in. Seven points from that opening would suggest aims should be pointed squarely at trying to get into the top half.

On the back of a terrible season, getting momentum going quickly will be crucial.

Paul Simpson: Controversial, but it’s fair to say that Simpson didn’t cover himself in glory. At best, he was unable to stem the tide last season and not tactically flexible enough to prevent the situation from getting worse, and it got pretty bad. At worst, he actively made it worse by calling out players in press conferences, setting teams up poorly and rarely not needing to make adjustments mid-game to fix issues that could be deemed of his own creation.

He remains at the club and exactly how much credit he has in the bank is hard to say. What he can’t now claim is that he hasn’t been backed or doesn’t have the squad to play how he wants to. He does.

So if Carlisle don’t get off to a good start, the question on his future that appeared towards the end of lasat season will quickly re–occur. As the Piataks have done so much to fix the infrastructure around the club, the question will remain as to whether that is potentially at the detriment of not having made personnel changes on the footballing side to set a new direction (or playing style). While few would doubt the new owners have delivered great strides off the pitch, they haven’t had to make a decision that directly impacts how the side plays at this point and, as such, the decision making there, should it be required, having to happen mid-season and, presumably, when things aren’t going all that well is, if not problematic, at least not the ideal circumstances in which you want that decision to be made and risks wider instability.

A case for a prediction

If you offered me seventh and the playoffs now, I’d take it and say thank you. 

Momentum has to be re-established really early to get things going. If it isn’t, then what? This side is absolutely too strong to be involved in relegation battles but reasserting the mental side of the game from a side that was getting smacked about every week into one that has to aim for the upper echelons of the table in what is an extremely tight pack of contenders in amidst taking on two of the side that will be near the top in the first three games of the season is a massively difficult feat.

As such, I would err on the side of caution and think that Carlisle’s recovery will come once the slightly easier run of games they have in October and November begins to hit. If Carlisle can make the playoffs, a late run similar to Doncaster last season is probably the most likely path to that for that exact reason - getting momentum is hard with the hardest away trips so early on.

To put a position on that? 9th - the cluster of sides that will be pushing for 3rd and the playoffs is so wide that finishing 9th wouldn’t have you at the bottom of it but, by the same account, that cluster of sides is so great that staging a late run to the playoffs will be very difficult.