Carlisle United 0 Northampton Town 2: Carlisle United’s Football League status is in peril. That message can be written on billboards even in mid-October, and if it is not raising the volume of alarm inside Brunton Park by now, the question must be asked: what will it take?

Four consecutive league defeats, five from six, a road to fourth bottom: these are not sequences that can be spun. There are no “positives” to be derived, no “data” to be presented in defence, and it just rubbed it in deeper that Keith Curle happened to be the away manager who sent his old club closer to a reckoning here.

What it meant for Steven Pressley’s tenure is yet to be determined, although many fans in Brunton Park were vocally giving their verdict after Sam Hoskins had smashed in Northampton’s injury-time second goal. The much-maligned board also copped some from the 3,324 crowd.

What it means for Carlisle’s campaign is already clear. Here, they followed a reasonable first half with a dire second and that five-point gap above League Two’s one relegation place is looking very precarious right now.

If they cannot beat the 15th-best at home, or even smuggle a point from them, who out there is weak enough for the Blues to overcome? The list appears disturbingly short. Also troubling is that a few others in the mire have started winning. Until Carlisle locate that long-lost ability, hope will be scarce.

Once Northampton opened the scoring in the 51st minute through 18-year-old Scott Pollock, Carlisle, frankly, collapsed. After performing with a degree of intent in the first half they were perplexed by the challenge of overcoming Curle’s mid-table opponents. Hoskins’ second, in added time, triggered chants of “We want Pressley out”, among other scornful lyrics.

As those fans wait to learn if directors will honour their request, we must reflect on a game which was, not for the first time in 2019/20, hard to watch. Pressley made two further changes in a bid to make his professed “green shoots” grow but his alterations – Nathan Thomas for Olufela Olomola, and Christie Elliott for the suspended Jack Iredale – did not produce points that could, at last, follow all the positive recent talk.

To start with there seemed a reasonable possibility for Pressley, based on Carlisle having the better of the opening exchanges even though they could not find the killer chance. Early on, Thomas whipped a cross against the side-netting and Elliott skipped past Scott Wharton to create a half-chance for Gethin Jones, who looked hungry in his latest role at left wing-back.

Northampton replied with an Andy Williams shot that whistled wide as the flag went up, but before Nicky Adams could find his consistent crossing range, Carlisle tried some more. Thomas carved their best early chance, beating his man before shooting with the outside of his left foot; keeper David Cornell parrying it onto Hallam Hope’s head but the striker nodding wide.

These were, at least, signs of the game going in the right direction, with a couple of other occasions when Carlisle worked their way up the pitch well. At the other end, Adam Collin dropped what looked a routine Hoskins cross but grabbed it before Williams could poach.

From there, an amount of to-and-fro without vast quality at the end of it. For the visitors, Adams floated a free-kick to the far post but no-one was there. Billy Waters floated a cross from the other side but it went over Williams. In between, both sides had swapped possession cheaply and sometimes haphazardly. When Waters received it at one point on the left, he fell over.

It had the sense of a low or possibly no-scoring game even though teenager Jarrad Branthwaite, who was looking composed on his home league debut, almost got on the end of a corner and, later, Thomas received the ball deep, battled past his man and had Cornell at full stretch to tip his shot wide.

This was presumably the idea behind Pressley’s preference for Thomas, probing from the middle rather than just wide with a burst of speed, over Olomola. What Carlisle couldn’t do was make the most of the set-pieces these attacks sometimes produced, yet half-time was reached – via a counter-attack that saw the alert Stefan Scougall feed Gethin Jones to cross beyond Hope – with the idea that victory was in their reach, but only if they could tighten up in the final third.

If only. Now there’s a familiar line. Carlisle United are If Only FC. One more chance came and went early in the second half, Thomas whipping over the bar, before Northampton, having barely threatened, scored.

They almost did when United gave it away on the right of their defence but Hoskins saw his volley blocked, but Pollock had better luck moments later, scoring his first Northampton goal with a high, rifled finish as Carlisle faltered at the back again.

The sense of dismay was back like an old friend at the sparsely-filled ground. Curle had introduced big striker Harry Smith at the break but United, who also needed more substance in attack, were slower to act. The period that followed Northampton’s opener saw Carlisle lose all their earlier positivity and one sensed the need for change before Pressley did make his first substitution, Ryan Loft replacing Hope up front.

It was like-for-like positionally, if not in style, but United also needed different angles, better impetus. Better players, to be blunt. Things were now tepid and the league table was becoming an even less attractive sight. Collin saved from Smith after Branthwaite, largely impressive for a boy of 17, was beaten to the ball, before Harry McKirdy, back from injury, was Carlisle’s next introduction.

Northampton nearly wrapped it up when Smith had a free header saved from a corner and United were at this stage incoherent in the away half, reliant on desperate dribbles and hopeful attempts in the absence of a convincing pattern or sufficient skill. McKirdy went close from 20 yards but this was an isolated burst, Collin saving from Vadaine Oliver late on and Branthwaite testing Northampton with a volley, before Hoskins slammed home at the death.

The songs, from both home and away fans, were a bleak serenade to Pressley, who later gave a short press conference to insist "we will get through this".

We are going through it already, alas. And not in a good way.

United: Collin, Branthwaite, Webster, Mellish, Elliott, G Jones, M Jones (McKirdy 70), Bridge, Scougall, Thomas (Olomola 80), Hope (Loft 62). Not used: Gray, Knight-Percival, Sagaf, Sorensen.

Northampton: Cornell, Goode, Turnbull, Harriman (Smith 46), Wharton, S McWilliams, Pollock, Hoskins, Adams, Williams (Oliver 72), Waters (Lines 62). Not used: Fisher, Hall-Johnson, C McWilliams, Anderson

Goals: Pollock 51, Hoskins 90

Booked: Waters, S McWilliams

Ref: Scott Oldham

Crowd: 3,324 (176 Northampton fans)