Carlisle United 0 Cheltenham Town 1: Santa Claus, who had loitered in the Warwick Road End throughout the game, was making his way out of Brunton Park. As the wind raged and the rain spattered Brunton Park, the eye swiftly moved back to the pitch, where a man in orange, rather than red, stood.
Tomas Holy, his kit illuminated by United’s floodlights, walked towards the Andrew Jenkins Stand before pausing, his head slightly lowered. He applauded the fans – not in the traditional, hands-above-head action, but in a smaller, politer and, we have to say in the circumstances, more bashful style.
He then did the same in front of the Warwick, lingering just long enough for other players to move on, leaving him briefly alone. Faced with this forlorn sight, it was impossible not to feel for Carlisle’s goalkeeper on a human level. It must be lonely, to be Holy, this Christmas.
The Czech, Paul Simpson said, had registered an apology at half-time, and he fronted it up in front of United’s supporters. Holy is not a man who can slip unnoticed either through a game or its aftermath. Bad days cling accusingly to such a big man. Saturday was a particularly excruciating one.
Holy’s form, his capacity for a goal-costing mistake per game, is only one of Carlisle’s problems right now. Nobody else in Simpson’s team earned extra helpings of turkey with his display either. A goalkeeper, though, is a man on his own when things go wrong.
Firstly, let’s hope Holy can handle these desperately low times. Let’s hope he has someone to lean on, whether or not there is a way back for him now in the long run. The inexperience of Gabe Breeze probably keeps him in the team until January. Beyond that, his hold on a place currently looks as precarious as his grip on the ball in the 26th minute against Cheltenham.
One of the worst goals, spectacle-wise, you could wish to concede was both symptom and cause of Carlisle’s struggle. Their No1 is in a low way, reliability wise, yet so is the wider team.
If it was scarcely believable, watching Holy dive to keep a ball in play and somehow scoop it into George Lloyd’s path – Liam Sercombe converted the resulting cross – it’s also of a piece with United this winter. Inconsistent, fickle and, all in all, not good enough.
Cheltenham’s opening goal defined this game. It did not have to, but the reason it did was because Carlisle’s ten outfielders were, once more, also defective. They made abysmally little impression on the worst team in League One and are now contenders for that title themselves, only goal difference keeping them off the bottom of the table.
And yes, the context for all this remains the recency of United’s rise, their ahead-of-schedule promotion, the magic Simpson worked in 2022/23. Struggling in League One was, as we know, a problem they'd have bargained hard for a year and a bit ago.
Faced with it now, though, it still alarms to see the extent of the surgery needed to save that status. Luke Armstrong, watching on here, must only be the start of it come January. Players with the stomach, as well as skill, for gruelling games like this have to make the door spin on its hinges at Brunton Park.
For these – not Bolton away, not the dances on other big stages – are the occasions when your mettle is properly examined. And Carlisle emphatically failed the test. A first-minute attack involving Alfie McCalmont offered sudden promise, before Cheltenham were faced with the disruptive effect of a fifth-minute injury to striker Will Goodwin.
Yet the visitors rode that blow, and Carlisle failed to make them ponder. George Lloyd was a mobile replacement for Goodwin and although his seventh-minute goal was disallowed for offside, Darrell Clarke's team still competed better, acted hungrier, won more ball, got retaliation in quicker, found their shape more solidly. United struggled in the teeth of the wind, Holy’s kicking flawed, his team-mates’ poise and passing well short.
There were not enough moments like the 18th-minute cross-field ball Dylan McGeouch played for Luke Plange: a gem in the murk. A Jack Robinson corner forced a goal for Jon Mellish – again, offside – but United’s other efforts were at a safe distance for Clarke’s men...and then the dark sky fell in for Holy.
Let it be said at first that Cheltenham got free down the right too easily, and that’s not on the keeper. The rest, though, is: Josh Emmanuel’s well-made block, the ball skidding wide, Holy’s dive, the ball slipping out of his hands, Lloyd’s accepting of the gift, his pass and Sercombe’s decisive run in front of Mellish to score.
Suddenly, any tentative hope drained from United. The rest of the half was a futile slog, Cheltenham’s Rob Street having the best remaining chance, Jordan Gibson trying in vain to mine something, anything, from somewhere, Carlisle uninspired and slapdash both in their play and, at times, their coherence in tracking runners and operating in packs.
The second half was then as miserable as we have seen all season. Charged with threatening an organised but limited opponent, United vanished into the margins. After a triple substitution on the hour, Sean Maguire offered flashes of invention but only small ones. Owen Moxon soon got caught up in the malaise too, and a last-gasp spill by visiting keeper Luke Southwood was protected by defenders as Maguire and Ryan Edmondson tried to scavenge for Carlisle.
There had been no such obstruction when Holy stumbled, United failing to help either themselves or each other and suffering the damning consequences. The final whistle came, and boos attacked the performance. The man in orange stood alone, saying sorry, and Brunton Park’s stands were soon empty.
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