Oldham Athletic 1 Carlisle United 1: Carlisle United’s winning run came to a late end here at Oldham. It really shouldn’t have done. The Blues did enough to wrap up a couple of games but a lack of cold-eyed finishing cost them the chance to make it four victories from four. 

Much of the Cumbrians’ play at Boundary Park gave grounds for bright encouragement. In the first half especially Carlisle besieged Oldham with more energetic football and an additional set-piece threat.

What they lacked – and it’s a biggie, unfortunately – was the sort of clinical work required to see such dominance home. All they had to show for their efforts was Aaron Hayden’s 54th-minute header, and no 1-0 lead in League Two is thick enough to give maximum confidence against a fightback.

Zak Dearnley duly got Oldham on terms, with a clever spin that got the goal it deserved, and this contest remained in the balance until the end, instead of the points having long vanished back up the M6. 

It is progress in itself to consider disappointment at 10 points from 12 instead of the maximum. United remain on the front foot in this improving campaign. Oldham were, though, there for the taking and Carlisle’s next step must be to put games like this soundly to sleep. 

Forty-five days since the Blues slumped 3-0 at this ground in their Carabao Cup opener, they arrived at Oldham in much brighter nick. Chris Beech did that rarest of things in this disrupted season and named an unchanged side. Oldham, by contrast, made five alterations and could not even call on the touchline help of their head coach, given the pre-match news of Harry Kewell’s positive Covid-19 test. 

The Australian helped his assistant Alan Maybury “remotely”, such are the ways of these strange football times. Carlisle, meanwhile, had half a chance of topping League Two, while Jon Mellish was hoping to score in his fifth consecutive game, and this was a healthy context for events from United’s point of view. 

Could United press and attack with similar intensity as against Colchester three days earlier? For most of the first half, it certainly seemed they could. Carlisle put at least the same sort of vibrancy and endeavour into the opening stages and might easily have taken a quick goal. 

Joshua Kayode was the first to go close, meeting George Tanner’s purposeful run and cross with a hanging header which Ian Lawlor had to tip over. Further zip sent Mellish down the left onto a one-two before he supplied Gime Toure, whose curler skimmed the bar. 

United’s movement and overlapping runs were giving Oldham immediate issues, and only a tangle of feet prevented Mellish making more of Kayode’s supply from the left. Toure had a further effort cleared off the line, and all this happened inside the first 10 minutes. 

Oldham, in response, were at this stage struggling to construct anything meaningful around the line-leading of Bobby Grant, a weak shot from Alfie McCalmont the best they had to show early on. Ben Garrity did start to collect more midfield ball and spread play, with Conor McAleny an outlet on the left, but United’s counter-attacking intent remained, Tanner serving Lewis Alessandra for a shot he hooked wide, Joe Riley then getting the wrong side of Brice Ntambwe, Lawlor having to save Callum Guy’s low free-kick. 

Carlisle, as against Colchester, were either disrupting Oldham repeatedly or providing a secondary threat from long throws, free-kicks and corners. The seal should really have been broken on 34 minutes but if there is one thing Toure has not supplied yet in his bright start to life at Carlisle, it is stone-cold finishing. This time he skipped clean through when Mellish helped the ball on and Kyle Jameson slipped, but the Frenchman could only hit the outside of the post. 

This kept Oldham on terms at a time they should have been adrift. United kept advancing, kept showing creativity, but remained at risk of the home side finding their own range, which they nearly did when Dearnley managed to turn against Hayden and squeeze a shot across Paul Farman and narrowly wide. 

Carlisle needed to remain as positive in the second half and this time apply a sharper finish. Happily, they did. After Toure had a couple of efforts, another Guy corner did the trick, Hayden leaping higher than Oldham’s defenders and sharper than the late-coming Lawlor, who was stranded as the header arrowed low into the net. 

It was the sort of set-piece potency we had been promised in summers past and not delivered, but Hayden, who has scored two in two, has presence in both boxes. It seemed at this stage that the only way Carlisle could fall back now was if they ambushed themselves, and after a small flurry of Oldham pressure, ending with Tom Hamer belting a volley over the bar, Beech bellowed reminders to this end towards his players. 

They were not strictly heeded considering how things unfolded from there. Jordan Barnett’s delivery from Oldham’s left was, as the hosts attempted a comeback, something United needed to better shut down, while Garrity came close to converting one of his corners. Beech sent on Gavin Reilly for Toure, and then added the experience of Dean Furman against his former club for the final stages. 

The latter change was presumably designed to get a more calming sole on the ball after a rather edgy 10 minutes or so after Hayden’s goal, but the best feet in that period were displayed by Dearnley, whose spin from the edge of the box when receiving Danny Rowe’s pass was too clever for Carlisle’s defenders, his clinical finish also too good for Farman.

United, provoked, went back in search of a winner. Tanner flashed a cross through the six-yard box which deserved, but did not receive, attention, and other counter-attacks almost brought the Blues through – but it remained more alive than it needed to be right to the end, Dylan Bahamboula glancing wide as Oldham chased a victory that should have been, by rights, nowhere near their grasp.