Carlisle United resumed their promotion challenge with a 2-0 victory over Newport County – but what did we learn from the game? Let’s take a closer look.
1 FLASH GORDON
It was a debut to remember for John-Kymani Gordon, who scored a stylish goal to make it 2-0 in the second half.
The Crystal Palace will not forget his first 66 minutes of first-team football in a hurry.
It took a while for United and their new signing to make an attacking imprint on a windswept and, initially, testing game.
Yet the 19-year-old always showed willing to do the defensive side of the game...before that explosion of his talent after the break.
Paul Simpson deployed him on the left of United’s attack, and a position map by WhoScored.com shows Kymani-Gordon operated a little closer to his wing than Carlisle’s other wide attacker, Jordan Gibson on the right.
It was not, for some time, a game replete with chances or opportunities for Gordon to run at his man – but when that chance came, he took it superbly.
It was his one major dribble of the game, and his only shot – yet it was enough. Instant impact, and a bright, dynamic start.
2 SENIOR SERVICE
Most of the talk after the game was of Gordon, and of Kristian Dennis’ latest goal-taking and making impact, yet other players in the performance deserve credit.
Few were mentioning Joel Senior, yet the wing-back arguably deserves the greatest praise of all.
It was only his second game since returning from injury, and his first outing at Brunton Park for the best part of a year.
That he got through the game as capably and safely as he did is to the former Altrincham man’s great credit.
Senior, the stats say, made more tackles than anyone else in a blue shirt, and also made some telling clearances.
The 23-year-old is well known as an attack-minded player, though Saturday did not offer him umpteen opportunities in this regard.
Those will undoubtedly come. In the meantime, simply seeing him back and performing with this amount of substance is a highly welcome step.
He was the unsung hero of this Brunton Park victory.
3 HOW HITMAN COMPARES
Kristian Dennis’ goalscoring shows no sign of abating. It’s now 15 for the season, Saturday’s opener a classic piece of awareness and finishing as the ball bounced off various heads in the Newport box.
Dennis is well on track to become the first Carlisle player to pass the 20-goal mark since Karl Hawley in 2005/6.
It is interesting to compare Dennis’s strike rate to other high-scoring United men of the recent past.
His 15-goal tally has come from 26 games.
By that stage, Hawley (who ended 2005/6 with 26) also had 15.
In 2016/17, Charlie Wyke was on 13 from 26 games (he reached 18 before leaving the Blues in January).
The season before, 2015/16, Jabo Ibehre’s first 26 games produced 14 goals.
Gary Madine’s start to 2010/11 earned him 13 goals from 26 games.
The remarkable scoring season of Ian Harte in 2009/10 had brought him seven of his 18 goals by the 26-game mark.
Danny Graham had nine by this point in 2007/8. Ian Stevens had 14 by this stage in 1997/8.
In other words, Dennis is at least keeping pace and in most cases surpassing the ratio, by mid-January, of his goalscoring United peers. If he maintains his current rate until May, he'll be in the 27-goal region. Impressive.
4 THE GROUNDWORK
After a rather flaky display on New Year’s Day at Doncaster Rovers, this was a much more thorough effort for United in those areas where a game can be quietly won or lost.
Once Carlisle got on top of things from the end of the first half onwards, there was seldom a sense of them losing control.
Newport still created chances – they had 12 attempts in the game, and passed up a couple of really good opportunities – but so did United as things went on.
And in the performances of such as Callum Guy and Jordan Gibson there were further reasons why Paul Simpson’s side took enough hold of things.
Guy was everywhere in the midfield trenches, an increasingly important contribution at a time Owen Moxon was being encouraged to go further forward.
Gibson, drifting in from either side at different stages, also carried the ball well, saw his cross put Newport on the back foot before the opener, and came the width of a post from a goal.
Once more, too, the ability and willingness of Jon Mellish to switch positions at a moment’s notice was to Carlisle’s benefit, as he moved from defence to midfield to disrupt some of Newport’s flow.
A mention, too, for Omari Patrick, who looked sharp in his sub appearance upon his return from injury, put some extra bite into United's late attacking, and prevented Newport from thinking the closing stages would all be about their own attempts to score.
If a victory is a thing of many parts, the contributions of players like this must be heralded.
5 KEEPING IT CLEAN
It was another clean sheet for Carlisle, taking their shut-out tally to ten for the season, from 25 league games.
Tomas Holy’s goal did come under threat, Newport hitting the post and missing a couple of good opportunities via set-pieces.
But United’s defending in other respects was secure, and they are only three short of their total of 13 clean sheets for the entirety of last season.
Their current average will see them reach 18 by the end of the campaign, which appears a highly respectable number and something generally associated with a successful term.
In their last promotion season, 2005/6, the Blues kept 20 clean sheets, with Keiren Westwood a superb last line of defence.
In 2007/8, when they almost reached the Championship, there were 18 shut-outs.
Keith Curle’s play-off side of 2016/17 kept only seven clean sheets in a campaign where their goalscoring tended to carry them.
Yet in the 2020/21 season, when Chris Beech’s side topped the table before a slide, there were 15 clean sheets.
Mick Wadsworth’s heroes of 1994/5 kept 16 clean sheets in the league.
Simmo’s solid Blues, then, are in good company – another indicator of their progress here in 2022/23.
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