Carlisle United 0 Coventry City 1: When it mattered, Coventry looked more like a play-off team than Carlisle United, and there was little doubt that 2017's final fixture reminded us more of the Blues' limitations than their strengths.

United's recent climb to within spitting distance of the top-seven came a cropper here, and it is hard to argue that Mark Robins' visitors did not get what they deserved: a nuggety 1-0 win which could easily have been more, had it not been for some wasteful finishing and Jack Bonham's excellence in goal.

Bonham's penalty save on 75 minutes kept Carlisle in it after the taker, Marc McNulty, had earlier made the most of a free shot from open play to give Coventry the lead. United did not have anything like enough quality to make the most of this reprieve and where 2018 is concerned, the hunt for consistency will have to begin again.

Unlike in their previous three fixtures, all encouraging wins, Keith Curle's side were badly lacking in the final third. Their frontmen had poor days and no-one else could find the inspiration to worry the fourth tier's best defensive record. So a loud travelling support enjoyed their day at Brunton Park, as too many visiting sides have in this calendar year.

It leaves Carlisle 13th, and six points adrift of the top seven as they face another contender, Mansfield, today. The gap may not be insurmountable but any increase in it at this time of season makes life harder, and any serious drive for honours may depend on how far a thin budget may stretch in the transfer window.

Curle, who expects to get answers from the board on that score on Friday, ended an often volatile year of results with an unusual sense of predictability, naming the same side for the fourth consecutive game. Changes are likely this afternoon, but on Saturday it was the same XI, and also the same formation that had brought three straight victories at the back end of 2017.

Whether they could finish it off depended, in part, on which Coventry would turn up, in a season which has so far seen them skim the play-off places but not impose themselves higher. Their travelling fans were in vocal mood; United's task was to silence them.

Even in a first half which Carlisle shaded, it proved no easy job, for the opening stages saw both teams cancel each other out. Seldom was it free-flowing, and chances came only at a trickle. United began by often going aerial towards Richie Bennett, yet in a brisk wind, not much resulted.

Coventry looked to build more on the floor, but took time to work their way through the lines. It was quite uneventful for a good while, a long-range Danny Grainger free-kick the best of Carlisle's early offerings, while the visitors couldn't make openings count for Devon Kelly-Evans or McNulty, the latter having a shot blocked after bright build-up that ought to have produced more.

Coventry suffered the loss of defender Jordan Willis to injury after just 18 minutes but before trying to take advantage of this, United were pushed back by Mark Robins's side for a spell. Yet Bonham was not unduly troubled, and then Carlisle reappeared downfield, Tom Parkes engaging keeper Lee Burge with a long-distance volley.

A more fluent attack then saw James Brown control a fine, diagonal Clint Hill ball, but when Hallam Hope arrived in space to shoot, Tom Davies' block was deemed fair, despite the ball seeming to strike the defender's hands.

It was encouraging to a point, but never overwhelming. At the other end, Kelly-Evans warmed Bonham's gloves, before United finished the half on the front foot, Reggie Lambe going close from 25 yards and Grainger failing to make the most of a break on the left, before a corner from the captain slipped just wide via Hill's challenge and a Coventry body. From the next set-piece, Bennett hooked a shot on target, but found Davies there to block.

If your money was on anyone at this stage it would probably have been Carlisle, but United's habit of starting second halves slowly remained in the back of a few minds. Perhaps it was in the front of Robins' too, as he sent on Duckens Nazon - who had scored in this fixture at the Ricoh Arena in September - on for Stuart Beavon at the break.

It was not the sub, though, but McNulty who caught Carlisle cold this time. Forty-nine minutes of defensive strength, in the main, evaporated when the ball was sent into United's box from the left and, assisted by the wind and a misjudgement by Hill, found Coventry's number 10 free.

He accepted the gift by stroking it past Bonham and became the latest player to unsettle the Blues so soon after the restart.

Nazon did not last much longer, going off injured 10 minutes after coming on, but the game was now going to be shaped at the other end: namely, whether United could now affect the team who concede fewer than anyone else at their level.

Their efforts, in the main, foundered against Robins' back four, but their passing also grew more hasty and more slapdash. It was not the improvement supporters had wished for and they were nearly killed off at times when Coventry broke, as the overlapping Tom Bayliss hit the post and Max Biamou backheeled in Kelly-Evans' shot, only for the offside flag to rescue United.

Downfield, Bennett tested Burge with a routine effort, but United's game needed to be raised much higher than this. Curle's first attempt at this was to replace Parkes with John O'Sullivan and shift Carlisle into a more attacking shape, in theory.

The Blues lacked, though, any sense of control or devil when they came at their guests. If you had a pound for every time a Coventry player stayed down on the deck either with injury or cramp you'd have had enough for a decent round on New Year's Eve but, all the same, the visitors were well organised by Robins, equipped to counter-attack in numbers and, as such, looked much more dangerous. A heavy touch denied substitute Biamou, while 18-year-old Bayliss often caught the eye with some high-stepping runs from midfield that got the better of some weak United challenges.

Shaun Miller, the hero against Accrington, came on for Hope, but before there was any possibility of a turnaround there had to be heroics at the other end. Bonham, it was, who kept Carlisle clinging on, saving McNulty's penalty after the striker had slipped past Gary Liddle and Mike Jones had tripped Jordan Shipley.

This, and other wasted Coventry chances, gave Carlisle more hope than they really deserved. So on they went, frustrating to the end, wasting one free-kick when Jamie Devitt fired into the wall, then another when Grainger found the Warwick Road End, trying to find the solution but coming up far too short; a conclusion we need to be making about them rather less in 2018 if the new year is to have good things in store.