Carlisle United 0-1 Blackpool: Jon Colman's verdict

One: Carlisle retrieve possession in their own territory, before Joshua Kayode progresses up the pitch, largely unchallenged, then attempts to supply Jon Mellish to his right. The same wavelength? Let’s just say one of the duo is on FM, the other medium wave, neither DAB. The pass dribbles humiliatingly away.

Two: United gather it up again and feed Ben Barclay on the wing. It is an undisputed cross, an opportunity to deliver. The ball departs Barclay’s right foot and lands dismally behind the Blackpool goal.

Three: as added time drifts by, the strong wind that has accompanied the spectacle all afternoon is joined by a sudden surge of battering rain. Not just heavy precipitation, but the sort of apocalyptic downpour that leaves you looking for frogs and other creatures in the deluge. It feels telling in itself.

Harry Lewis watches a Blackpool shot clear the United bar (Image: Ben Holmes)

A few minutes after full-time, with Brunton Park cleared, the sun comes back out and blue skies materialise. One hopes that’s some sort of metaphor for what might follow 2023/24, because what’s happening even to its bitter end is veering from the bad to the not-quite-as-bad to the worse, and sometimes the head-against-table terrible.

Those cameos above are not on their own why United lost, why they’re going down with plenty to spare or why things feel, with the odd rare exception, so desolate for them at this level. Kayode has only played two games in seven months, and Barclay is not a right winger. But don’t they just fit the pattern of disconnect, join the film reel of struggle, show us that the normal things aren’t working and the replacement or readjusted things aren’t too, and there’s really no hope, no hope at all?

Sam Lavelle heads forward for United (Image: Barbara Abbott)

Don’t they say that this campaign needs to be binned, as quickly and as discreetly as possible, because at this stage, 44 games and 28 defeats in, it’s offering very little of encouragement for the fundamental job that lies ahead?

Yes, they say it very eloquently indeed. This was a narrow defeat in one sense, mainly because Blackpool refused to kill Carlisle in the first half, but also another one with space between the teams, because United never resembled a League One team, certainly not one that attacks effectively enough. Hobbled by injuries, dragged down by underperformance, beaten by a side that was not clinical but certainly more proficient in the technical areas of the game…this was the Blues, with 180 minutes now to go.

Jon Mellish on the attack for United (Image: Ben Holmes)

Let those final games pass speedily. On a blustery day that showed spring still stuck in transit, there was an initial period of balanced play, some to and fro, a delivery, the ball out of play, things evenly poised. The first 35 seconds, we’ll call them. And then…

A throw down the right, and Shayne Lavery wins an effective header for Blackpool. Karamoko Dembele is then too sharp for Harrison Neal, too swift for the chasing Sam Lavelle, and too clinical for the advancing Harry Lewis. One attack, one goal, not even one minute gone. Barely even half of one.

Georgie Kelly tries a shot for Carlisle (Image: Barbara Abbott)

And nothing, in the period that followed, to challenge Blackpool’s instant superiority. With that forceful wind at their backs, they played all the football, did all the pressing, worked all the angles, kept all the possession, offered all the invention as Carlisle toiled, failing to put passes together with the care or technique that might have built any spells whatsoever.

The only time United threatened to dispute the early white and orange dominance came in the eighth minute when, following a free-kick, Georgie Kelly and Lavelle combined to play Luke Armstrong in, the striker denied by a sliding challenge.

Otherwise…nada. Blackpool’s running either side of United’s defence and interplay in front of it was adept, and they should have stacked up more goals. Barclay denied Lavery, George Byers missed a free header and then, after Jayden Harris had replaced the hurt Jack Robinson, Paul Huntington intercepted Lavery with a heavy challenge – fortunate, possibly, not to concede a penalty – before Sonny Carey’s deflected shot spun close. Then Lavery turned in the box and missed a sitter.

Sub Jack Diamond on the ball as the rain lashes down (Image: Barbara Abbott)

Late in the half, Mellish crossed out of play for Carlisle, and by the interval there had been the square root of the centre of a Golden Mile doughnut to reassure you in their play. That it was only 0-1 was the only morsel of comfort.

Yet that is a scoreline that’s been a friend to Blackpool of late, and it rarely looked like altering here. Carlisle adjusted and were more competitive across the piece in the second half, and the visitors, including the initially rampant Dembele, did not go for the throat. The ball was blown this way and that as James Husband cleared an Armstrong header off the line, and Lewis saved from Carey.

Beyond that, a host of substitutions and some unending runs from Mellish, very little. United tried hard, stayed with the contest, and Kelly hooked a half-chance wide, but the No9 received next to none of the service such a centre-forward needs. Mellish scented a Neal pass late on, put it past the post, then the skies emptied themselves over Brunton Park one last time: another wind and rain-lashed defeat, another performance that offered painfully little, one more cold day on the lonely road back to League Two.