All Carlisle United can do now is go full-throttle towards Morecambe and not worry themselves into a panic about back-to-back defeats. Keith Curle 's team have spent all season looking ahead. Only with losses to Grimsby and Colchester has the rear-view mirror come into play.

Great opportunities still await the Blues, who remain in an enviable position provided Curle can figure out how to stem some leaks at the back.

Pessimists fearing a collapse in the second half of the season, and others who recall how last term's play-off push faltered after January, may feed on the evidence of the last 180 minutes. Jabo Ibehre is one of many at Brunton Park studying the bigger picture and convinced that the stutter towards the line in 2015/16 does not have to be repeated this time.

"I think it's changed already," the big striker said. "The mentality's changed. Last year's last year. I don't think things will be repeating themselves.

"You change things yourself in your life, and at the club there is new personnel, with the new mentalities they've brought. A new sort of resilience. Look at the amount of times we've changed the results halfway through games, from substitutions, from coming from behind.

"Going on that run we did earlier on in the season, when we consistently got results, I think that shows there's a steel there, so regardless of what happened last year in the sense that we might have petered away, I think there's a solid underbelly this time."

These words, it should be stressed, were spoken before United went under 4-1 at Colchester, where Carlisle's underbelly seemed rather more marshmallow. That it was a third league defeat in 25 was a stat Curle was keen to point out, in a bid to head off any "negativity".

Equally, the manager conceded the recent defensive record has been "diabolical" for a side with promotion aspirations. Whatever improvements need to be made, Ibehre believes they can be made in a more settled environment than Carlisle found themselves in this time last year.

January 2016, it will never be forgotten, saw the club pitched into chaos after the previous month's Storm Desmond floods. "Those distractions, not training here all the time, the stadium being off limits...those are catalysts that can affect results," the 33-year-old said.

"I don't see that this time. It would have been good to start [this] year off with a win, but you're going to lose games in football. There's enough in the dressing room, with the attitude of the people in there, to overcome things and be ok.

"We've got a lot of quality in the team, a lot of people vying for places, so everyone's on it. Maybe if they add a couple of people to the squad with quality, even better."

How Curle deals with the ongoing loss of Mike Jones and Danny Grainger (another absentee, Michael Raynes , will hopefully be back this weekend) feels like it will define Carlisle's ability to stay above fourth place for the foreseeable.

Tightening up is the aim, while the Blues this weekend would love a repeat of the 3-0 scoreline they inflicted on Morecambe on October 8 - coincidentally the last time they kept a clean sheet.

Ibehre, though, warns against reading too much even into the recent past. The campaign is across the halfway point and United have faced every side in League Two , mostly with good results. But the final few laps can bring different challenges.

"Yes, you watch teams in the first half of the season and you think, ok, there's no-one that's blown anyone away, nobody you say, ooh, this team can really pop the ball, they do this and do that," he said. "But you can't underestimate this league.

"I wouldn't judge teams just because you've played them and last time they performed in a certain way. Next time they could be completely different

"You have to look at every single game. If you don't do the right thing, you can get turned over by any team. Look at Newport - who would have thought we'd go there and lose, get whupped? But if we're on it, keep our high standards, I always think we'll get the result against whoever we play."

Whatever issues are on Curle's checklist, he would certainly not swap them for Morecambe's troubles. This weekend's opponents are facing an uncertain future with new owner Diego Lemos currently absent and uncontactable, amid claims from fellow directors that the Brazilian has not delivered promised funding.

A transfer embargo also in place, with the Professional Footballers' Association helping pay wages, the Shrimps will be relying on a certain spirit against the odds from here. It is easy to see certain elements of the Lancashire club coming together in adversity, for last weekend fans raised £1,000 to pay the Football Association fine incurred by manager Jim Bentley after he was sent to the stands at Cheltenham on December 17.

This moved Bentley and other staff at the Globe Arena to tears, on the day they thrashed Notts County 4-1. This suggests Carlisle will not have a free swing at a downtrodden opponent this weekend. All the same, they must expect to impose some of their strengths on a side 17th in their division.

These strengths ought to include the goals Ibehre, Shaun Miller and the prolific Charlie Wyke are capable of providing, and which will be crucial to sustaining any challenge.

"We all scored double figures last season, and hopefully we will get double figures again this season," said Ibehre, who is on eight so far.

"Charlie's already there and hopefully me and Shaun will catch up, and we'll keep going. That's what we want to do, fire us, help the team get to the goal that the gaffer and we want. At the same time, Jason [Kennedy] keeps scoring and there's goals coming from all over; we're not just relying on one person.

"When you look at certain previous teams who've done well, they've had goals from all over the place, like Oxford last season. Hopefully we can keep going, keep challenging, keep putting each other under pressure."

Ibehre has not long returned from a back injury and while he scored a commanding header against Notts County, chances went begging against Grimsby and Colchester. In the 3-1 defeat to the Mariners the striker agonisingly failed to equalise, meeting a close-range chance with his knee and watching keeper Dean Henderson scoop the slow-motion finish off the line.

"It just came at me in a more awkward position than I anticipated," he said. "It's just one of those things. You have to move on." Ibehre scored with his thigh earlier this season, at Barnet, but added: "That was a bit different - with the way the ball bounced, I could finish like that. The one [against Grimsby] was more in between, and I had to think, could I get it on my knee or my foot? And I didn't get enough to smother it over the line.

"But you're gonna score some and you're gonna miss some. It's the business of the game, being a striker."

That Grimsby chance perhaps showed the precarious nature of Carlisle's recent results. A fairer wind would have seen at least a point there, while they had opportunities at Colchester to make a closer thing of it, the slack defending aside.

United have tended to make the margins work in their favour for most of 2016/17 and now need to regain that habit. The experience brought in by Curle in the last two summers surely ought to be useful at this crucial stage.

Ibehre agrees. "A few of us have had promotions before, or play-offs - we've experienced that," he said. "Losing in games and then turning them around.

"I think there's enough there, and everyone's hungry. When you're in that position and you've got something to aim for and hold onto, you're not going to let it just slip away easily."