Colchester United 2 Carlisle United 2: Just now, spending too long thinking about the journey and the decisions that have led to this standard of Carlisle United football takes you to the nearest bucket of water before putting your head straight in. So let’s not go there.
OK – let’s still go there, but not exclusively. Let us also agree, if only for our sanity, that there are times when the destination is more important than how you reached it.
That Colchester United 2 Carlisle United 2 wouldn’t have looked the most hideous outcome if proposed at 3pm. That that’s how it ended and, well, it could easily have been worse.
In this land of meagre “positives”, the Blues may as well fall on that one as a starving man attacks a steak. When you’ve suffered four defeats on the spin and found a way to steer straight towards another from a winning position, any sort of late salvation will do.
Did the entirety of events at the Jobserve Community Stadium give you any new grounds for belief that Carlisle can play their way out of this mess? No. Hell no. Did that little cameo in the 86th minute, which resulted in Tobi Sho-Silva’s header trickling into the net, offer just a glimpse at the character that’s going to be needed from now until May?
Maybe. Maybe not. We can only hope. United have come from behind to avoid defeat in a game for the first time since October. Two of their January signings now have goals to their name. This extremely raw team now know that a deficit need not equal doom.
It would be a leap, though, to imagine these the stirrings of a revival. For that, United have to produce a much higher level of performance than we witnessed in this windy slog. They are going to have to – novel idea, this – win some games at some stage.
We are not there yet. Not when it's now seven without, and when United had to go to a place as unsuccessful this season as Colchester’s ground with a set-up designed mainly to block up all the holes they've allowed to open up of late.
Not when their defending is still as brittle as it was in the way Carlisle conceded twice in six minutes here. Not when they’ve shipped 12 in five. Not when their enterprise was restricted to one excellent moment from Omari Patrick and that breakaway Sho-Silva leveller, but next to nothing else, unless you count heavy touches, an utter grind of a midfield exhibition and other stuff which, in most circumstances, would be unacceptable.
So: small mercies. In front of 242 travelling fans, whose dedication is at odds with the vertical direction of the Blues, a largely grim first half played out in which Wayne Brown’s Colchester were on the front foot without much emphasis.
United were deep, flat and just desperate not to concede. After a near miss from Owura Edwards, Carlisle succeeded in this limited mission up to halfway. There were bouts of head tennis, many misplaced passes and nothing that could be confused with good and creative football, or even just football.
Carlisle used an extra centre-half as part of Millen’s attempts to cover up United’s inexperience in that department during this injury-hit run. Colchester’s more seasoned XI flirted around the front of the box and out wide, but only late in the half did they threaten with any vim.
Cole Skuse hooked one chance over the bar after a Mark Howard spill, and later tested the keeper’s reflexes with a first-timer. Otherwise, Edwards and Freddie Sears’ best attempts were moderate and Carlisle reached half-time at 0-0: one of those nils, at least, as precious as a diamond.
The sum total of their display heading up the pitch was actually flattered by the other zero. It therefore made you rub your eyes when, after the break, Owen Windsor broke onto a Jon Mellish pass to test Sam Hornby, and then Patrick produced a superb game-changing moment: running onto Sho-Silva’s glance, cutting in from the left and dispatching a beautiful shot into the far corner of the net.
Where in the Lord's name did that come from?
It was the first time United had led in a game since Patrick and Jordan Gibson gunned down Bradford City in a different, distant era (early January), and so the question of whether Carlisle would know what to do with such a position lent no great confidence with so long to go.
The pessimism was not misplaced. After Mellish dismembered a corner flag, Colchester took United out at the knees. Tommy Smith got up highest to head the equaliser past Howard, and then sub Tyreik Wright hooked in the hosts' second. In both cases Carlisle were extremely fragile in the act of protecting their goal against crosses and second phases.
Millen, late on, finally shuffled through his more creative substitute bodies who had, until then, been kept back from the struggle. On came Kristian Dennis. Scores elsewhere were consigning United to the relegation zone. The sound of teeth being ground was heard all the way from Essex to Cumbria.
Then Patrick picked up the ball, spotted Joe Riley in space to the right, he picked out Sho-Silva behind the defence and the striker’s stooping header oozed into the left of the net.
A dreadful night was duly averted. United dredged something out of the contest in the end. This makeshift team, living on its nerves, surviving on fumes and hanging by threads, got a point and left Essex. All we can say for sure about the next 16 games is that, one way or another, it's going to be an awful experience. Buckle up.
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