Carlisle United 3 v Charlton Athletic 1

Charlton crashed to their second defeat of the season at Brunton Park this afternoon. Lowly Carlisle saw the visitors off in the second-half with two long range shots from Graham Kavanagh.

The glass half-empty brigade will be telling us the writing’s been on the wall for some time having drawn so many games of late. The half-full variety will no doubt dwell on the enforced absence of Elliot and Richardson. The 4-5-1 Party will bemoan the starting formation of 4-4-2 and so on.

The simple fact for me is that this game has served as a bit of a reality check. The honeymoon period of the new season in League One is well and truly over. At full strength we have a decent first choice keeper and a competent defence. Our midfield is stronger than most in this division but our forward options are much weaker. On a day when Leeds again scored four and Mk Dons drew level with us on points, we simply didn’t carry enough goal-threat. Burton is an ageing journeyman striker who has barely managed to get out of single goal figures in any one season. McLeod looks like League Two is his level and outside it he appears more like an athlete than a footballer.

There was barely a chance in the opening 30 minutes for either side. Nicky Bailey floated a shot over the bar after half an hour but the game came to life before the break. Dailly was booked for a last ditch tackle with the crowd baying for him to see red, he was only shown yellow. Ian Hart hit the woodwork from the resulting free-kick and Carlisle suddenly found their feet and the home crowd their voices. Within a minute they had a loud appeal for a penalty as someone looked to be pushed in the box as Charlton back-peddled, but the referee was quick to award a corner. The pro-Charlton BBC London commentator didn’t sound at all convinced that the decision was a good one and from the ensuing corner, the referee awarded a penalty as if he was correcting his earlier call. Carl Ikeme stopped Ian Hart’s penalty but Hart knocked the rebound in.

As the players returned to the half-way line Phil Parkinson vented his spleen and told referee Hayward exactly what he thought of the penalty decision. I didn’t hear what was said but I will assume it was loud and unpleasant as our Phil was sent to the stands for the second-half.

Shortly afterwards, Mr Hayward may have been reproaching himself for the penalty because he awarded Charlton a spot-kick as Burton was felled heading into the box. Deon levelled from the spot and we went in 1-1 at half-time.

We needed to get a grip of the game at the start of the second –half and I felt we should have changed to 4-5-1 with Shelvey on for Burton or McLeod. We didn’t make any changes and we couldn’t get control of the match. Carlisle had grown in confidence and were increasingly taking the game to us. The nail in the coffin came from a long range effort from Kavanagh which rocketed past Ikeme. Parkinson then made the changes with Basey, Shelvey and Mooney coming on but before we could get back in the match Kavanagh scored again from distance but this time with a curling effort. Game over.

Darren Randolph will presumably be pacing up and down outside Parky’s office on Monday morning, although to be fair to Ikeme he sounded like he had a good enough debut and could do little about all three goals. Omozusi also sounded like he had a decent outing at right-back, but if you are going to compete and win games, you have to carry a goal threat and we are very obviously lacking here.

We now face two potentially morale-sapping cup ties at Northwich Victoria and Southampton before what is now an even more important match when we will need to beat MK Dons at the Valley to hang on to second spot. To do that we need to play to our strengths and start with a 4-5-1 formation. David Mooney should also be given more time as we already know what little goal threat we have in Burton and McLeod. I don’t fault either of them for effort but neither are going to do the damage we need in order to get out of this division.