The End of an Era (again)

Paul Simpson leaves Carlisle United

Four games into the League Two season, Paul Simpson has been sacked by Carlisle United. The owners, the Piatak family, face the first defining call of their stewardship of the club - their nine months in charge to date have seen them complete many admirable things behind the scenes at the club, like modernising Brunton Park, putting in place the sort of staffing you’d expect at this level and higher and, most importantly, resolving the impasse around the club’s training ground situation.

With a true club legend in the dugout and the situation around survival in League One in 23/24 having been already resolved (albeit in a negative sense) when the takeover was completed, the decision was made to not throw good money after a relegation situation that was already done and dusted and, instead, to build a side capable of getting out of League Two at the first attempt.

Instead, Carlisle sit after four games twentieth in League Two, already five points behind even the playoffs. While the opening stretch has certainly been of the more challenging variety, the manner of defeats firstly to MK Dons away and, finally, Tranmere at home were such that the benefit of the doubt Simpson was given by both the fanbase and the ownership was quickly spent up and a man who has twice saved the club (and the city) from non-league walked out of the club for the last time with the bitter taste of failure.

What went so wrong so quickly and are things in place for Carlisle to stage a quick turnaround of fortunes?

Recruitment

It’s fair to say that perhaps the greater surprise for many fans was not that coaches left with Simpson, it’s that Carlisle’s head of recruitment and former manager Greg Abbott wasn’t also given his jotters. After all, when sacking a manager the day after the transfer window ends, it tends to suggest that there isn’t that great a vote of confidence in the person putting the transfer deals together.

If we were just to look at outgoing transfers, then there are certainly a couple of players on whom Simpson’s judgement has come back to bite him. Jordan Gibson, not kept on after last season with personal reasons seemingly at the heart of it, has lit up League Two highlight reels with his opening day goal and followed it up by assisting for Doncaster in their game this week against fellow title-tipped Port Vale. Closer to home, Simpson’s final game defeat against Tranmere was dealt directly at the feet of Omari Patrick, who was released by the club after promotion to League One on the thought that he wasn’t good enough.

Revenge is a dish best served with a side of P45, it seems. And while those individual decisions taken in isolation aren’t necessarily incorrect, that they should not look the best calls in such quick succession 

Ultimately, the Piataks rightly expect return for their investment and, based on pre-match comments, Carlisle’s wage offers are far ahead of what Tranmere could offer.

So it’s fair to point out things such as the team having basically no wingers before the signing of Jordan Jones, a talent who is most known for getting suspended at Rangers for breaking COVID rules over having a drunken party during lockdown or for getting himself a long term injury in the process of getting himself sent off vs Celtic.

I’m not having a go at Jones with that, more just noting the point that Jones isn’t necessarily the most reliable person to hire. It’s something that feels a bit reactive to a need rather than planned out. From my own experience assisting clubs, you try to work three windows out when it comes to planning and, for Carlisle, it feels like they aren’t currently working three months out, never mind three windows.

Indications of that are that it’s fair to point out that Ben Barclay isn’t a midfielder yet had played there all this season prior to coming on as a sub vs Tranmere. It’s fair to point out that the players the club feel most reliant on in Mellish and the injured Guy are those that were at the club before Simpson took over. It’s fair to point out the entirety of last season in and of itself and, while those were under very different financial realities, is this start to the season not reflective that Greg Abbott and the wider recruitment set up at the club were a problem in spite of the excuse of the financials of Summer 2023, rather than because of?

Timing

Two aspects of the decision being made when it was are under scrutiny – specifically that it didn’t happen before and that it happened the day after the closure of the transfer window.

It’s fair to note that my previous opinion was that Simpson should have left/moved upstairs at the end of last season, allowing a new manager to come in and have a clean slate and also to allow a new manager to have a couple of months to set the club up to their liking before the games that mattered started coming in thick and fast.

At the same time, if you’re new owners and learning the football market as you go, the last thing you want to be doing is unnecessarily creating issues by sacking a club legend. If Simpson didn’t want to choose to leave, then making the decision had to be absolutely the only option on the table.

In that respect, this was about the only option on the table for the Piatak family. Simpson’s legacy will always remain intact, but he was given every chance.

On the flip side of that, does Simpson being given that time in the first place reflect poorly upon the owners? There are two facts in that argument - they’ve had plenty on their slate without getting their hands dirty with the footballing side of things and they’ve not made an appointment to the club that looks directly like someone to assist with the footballing side of things.

Arguably the latter is the bigger issue - if Carlisle do have ambitions to be a Championship club, then it only takes a quick peek around League Two at clubs of similar stature and ambition to note people like David Sharpe at Bradford or Liam Sweeting at MK Dons as buffers between ownership and the sporting side of things who could have provided direction more quickly.

The Results

Above is the xG difference in the four games leading to the departure of the previous four Carlisle United managers.

As it shows fairly clearly, the form shown by the side this season so far does track alongside the previous departures for the club (and also shows starkly just how much trouble the club were in under Keith Millen).

So, why is that?

The obvious answer is Carlisle’s shooting and, to a greater respect, Carlisle’s predictability and the (fair or not, you decide on this one) the rather archaic nature of Simpson’s set up.

One note from after the pre-season friendly against St Mirren was that, when asked if Carlisle would be signing wingers, Simpson responded along the lines of “we don’t need to, we have wing backs”.

Here’s Archie Davies’ heat-map so far this season 

It neatly shows the issue Carlisle have - by committing to this wing back formation, what their wide players don’t do is invert. Josh Vela, the midfielder most often starting on the right side of Carlisle’s central three is rarely taking touches or making actions in areas that would allow Davies to gallop on the inside of him. In fact, the only game where Vela’s heat map suggests he was taking attacking positions in wider areas was the win over Barrow.

The result is that Carlisle are very predictable as what’s true on the right is true on the left also - Carlisle’s wide-men stay wide, their central men stay central and, as such, they aren’t offering sides a great deal of lateral movement to have to think about. 

The result of that is that Carlisle’s chances break down into three categories - shots from outside the box, shots out of set pieces and shots from crosses, all of which are very inefficient ways of trying to score goals. Even in the win against Barrow, only the goal itself (which came from a long ball and a defensive slip) doesn’t fit into those categories.

As a result, while Carlisle’s attacking stats aren’t terrible - one of the better rates of cross conversion is fine, as is a top 8 volume of touches in the penalty area per 90 - but when it’s allied with a) one of the worst 1v1 success rates on dribbles and b) one of the bottom four shot on target percentages in the league, it tells you that Carlisle are well prepared for and somewhat predictable and that’s borne out by an xG per shot that’s in the bottom five of League Two.

Going deeper explains this more - only two sides have played fewer through balls so far this season than Carlisle. Carlisle have zero smart passes so far this season (intriguingly, MK Dons have seven - all of which were vs Carlisle!).

The point is that Carlisle, from an attacking perspective, aren’t breaking lines, are almost always going wide and, as such, while such an approach has to still be prepared for, opposition sides will know that they simply have to be solid out wide and strong against crosses and that’s half the job done. That is borne out with Carlisle being in the bottom three in League Two when it comes to aerial duel success rate.

Carlisle’s approach doesn’t create good chances and it’s been applied extremely inflexibly.

Defensively, Carlisle are bullied. 

No side has a lower defensive duels success rate than the Cumbrians in League Two (and it’s not especially close) which indicates an inability to win the ball. Particularly worrying in that aspect is that that particular percentage is being dragged down by the defence - of those players still at the club, the bottom four within the side is entirely occupied by the defensive line (eg Crewe, that bottom four is two forwards and two midfielders).

All of that is a very long winded way of saying - yeah, no wonder they sacked Paul Simpson because oh my.

The Decision

Ultimately, one of the driving factors behind Paul Simpson’s sacking is that much of the opprobrium from fans happened to come at the Tranmere game which was being attended by the Piatak family. Patience is easier to provide when you’re viewing games from an ocean away but, when you’re faced with the vitriol up close, it’s harder to ignore.

There are positives to be taken - Carlisle are 8th in the table in terms of shots taken per 90, in 7th are AFC Wimbledon who sit 6th in the table. The difference there being Carlisle put 29.6% of shots on target, Wimbledon put 40%. Their crossing success rate is good - just under 40% (Wimbledon top this at 46%)

As such, for any new manager, it’s not like this side isn’t making chances at all. They’re just very inefficient in doing so. If Paul Simpson’s reign at the club simply ran out of gas, it’s because the mpg of the engine was simply that much higher than any other club in League Two.

Carlisle United, and this will now be directed by the Piataks, need to decide exactly what sort of club they want to be. Simpson’s approach wasn’t necessarily wrong, but the achilles heel was its predictability. There was nothing to unsettle opposition beyond implementing plan A as effectively as possible and, if they know what plan A is, then plan B cannot simply be “do plan A again, but better”.

I picked out width as one of the key elements in the statistical overview but that’s simply the most obvious one - Carlisle would be a more effective attacking proposition if those defending against them in wide areas had to worry about players drifting from central areas to the flanks to allow those wingbacks space to run into and act in an inverted fashion. Carlisle would be a more effective attacking proposition if there were through balls played through to make central defenders have to think about their positioning zonally rather than just looking for their man to stop crosses.

This, ultimately, is the direction the Piataks have to choose - this isn’t an emergency, this is a chance for a reset. The squad itself is a strong one and, while it’s hard to imagine any new manager wouldn’t want to dip into the free agent market to pick up a right sided winger, there is no area of the side on paper where you would look and think there is an obvious lack of quality at this level. There is also little doubt that any new broom would have time and opportunity to impose a new playing style on what is there and to turn it into a long term project.

Who that person is is hard to say. The current top four in the betting are Gateshead’s Rob Elliot, Pete Wild, formerly of Barrow, Ryan Lowe, who recently left Preston citing needing time away from football, and Leam Richardson, formerly of Rotherham and Wigan.

All that really tells you is that bookies are simply looking at who is local and each have obvious question marks over them (Experience, Carlisle fans can’t stand Wild, having just left a role for a break, having a spell at Rotherham that makes Carlisle’s 23/24 look like a sparkling success - in that order). 

Carlisle, ideally, would look at a project manager along the lines of Brian Barry-Murphy or Rhys McCabe, who have built a reputation for playing very good football at City’s EDS and Airdrieonians respectively, who have both shown an ability to implement their visions quickly and who both could probably benefit from the sort of opportunity to impose themselves on a club that Carlisle’s blank slate allows. That’s what the Piataks should be looking to do. It, hopefully, is what they will do. 

Whether it’s what they’re confident in doing is another matter. They are, by their own admission, new to this business and their focus on having a first class setup was around putting the conditions in place to give them the time to learn on the job before having to make exactly the decision they’re about to make. Going and getting a young manager who is on the bleeding edge of things would be a big change from Simpson and for the club in general and the safe appointment would be the likes of a Michael Appleton, who has been on this merry-go-round before, or, to a lesser extent, Altrincham’s Phil Parkinson, who has shown plenty of aptitude over his seven years at Alty, but not someone who necessarily is going to set pulses racing.

So, four games in, what are Carlisle United for a new manager?

Well, for one, they’re a side clearly stronger than their league position would suggest. Whether the right formula is there in the side to challenge for the playoffs without additional recruitment is debatable, but they’re certainly not a bottom five side. They’re a side with plenty going on off the pitch - that’s the stated £8.5m of investment into stadium and training to bring things up to scratch - so are an attractive proposition for someone wanting to work with good players in good facilities.

But they’re a side that, as of right now, have gone along this season with a lot of weaknesses, many of which are fixable if you’re flexible.

For all the good decisions of the Piataks so far, to many fans, this is the first one that really counts. Shiny new hospitality lounges are great, but results on the pitch matter more to the thousands going week in, week out.

Here’s where their footballing education really begins.