Jon Colman reports from Edgar Street

Last updated 15:31, Wednesday, 22 October 2008

Hereford 1 Carlisle United 0: The realisation thumped home just as Hereford’s journeymen strikers were making traffic cones out of the visiting defenders on this desolate night in League One which dragged just 2,300 people out of their homes.

• Photos: images from the Hereford match

v Hereford: Danny Graham

It is that something has broken at Carlisle United. Managerial authority, dressing-room spirit, boardroom conviction: pick your own plateful from that menu while the Blues splash around in the gutter.

As if their run of six defeats from seven games doesn’t look bad enough, Carlisle have now dropped into our memory banks a quite hideous second-half performance against an earnest but plainly limited Hereford team. Edgar Street, the division’s throwback stadium, dragged United’s supporters back to the dismal days when their heroes performed like this every week, and relegation battles were the only tales in town.

Yes, we have arrived at the time when the R-word needs to be set down on paper, and the official or player who suggests this is an over-reaction had better do so on training ground and pitch in the approaching weeks, instead of just swatting the idea in conversation.

Not only are the numbers stacking up to suggest United are sinking into a grim squabble for survival, their displays are offering little in the way of an alternative argument. This wasn’t an undeserved defeat. Yes, Carlisle dominated possession in the first half.

But they made precisely nothing of it, and then opened the gate to a team who hadn’t managed a goal for seven hours and 35 minutes in the league until Andy Williams planted the winner past Ben Alnwick, following a typically muddled United attempt to clear a corner.

High on any list of scapegoats today must be Richard Keogh, for the collapse of discipline in the 76th minute which attracted a red card and a three-match suspension. Certainly, we have a new leader in the competition to find the author of the season’s most irresponsible act on the field. But the defender's lashing out at Steve Guinan was a symptom of the ill-feeling and frustration which is undeniably swirling through United, whatever honey-smothered noises keep flowing out of Brunton Park about “team spirit” and “confidence”.

For Ward, the charges pile high on the sheet. Such as: inconsistency of selection, over-reliance on under-performing individuals, recruitment of certain players and then rejection of their starting claims, and a failure to address glaring faults until it is too late, and defeatism is well and truly on the hard-drive.

That it has taken a sending-off to disrupt the malfunctioning Keogh-Danny Livesey central defensive pairing screams high-level neglect. The acquisition of Jennison Myrie-Williams and then allowing him just 15 minutes of action (such was the loanee’s lot again last night) is another matter. A tactical readjustment which placed Danny Carlton on the right wing in the second half cannot pass without censure. Nor can a systematic failure to defend set-pieces which threw three more points onto the furnace last night.

When players perform as abjectly as this, there can be no attempt to absolve them of blame. But it’s legitimate to ask whether proven performers, such as Livesey, Simon Hackney and David Raven, to hand-pick three, are diminishing without outside interference or are in fact having their form vandalised by the clumsiness of others?

That’s one of the uncomfortable questions which confronts Ward and his staff today. The response from the board in these troubling times will be fascinating, too, since the club’s owners can either confirm or challenge the prevailing public view that United are, on their watch, drifting back to the ambition-free days of old. Do they, too, answer for this damaging decline? And how? Let them now speak.

The sparsest crowd of Carlisle’s campaign watched them start this game with spells of encouraging passing and movement, but no convincing end product. Danny Graham skipped free of Bruno N’Gotty in the second minute, but couldn’t clip his shot over the sliding frame of Darren Randolph.

United, with Luke Joyce and Graham Kavanagh performing tidily in midfield against their plainly-anxious hosts, organised sporadic opportunities which Hackney, Kavanagh and Carlton failed to take - the latter making two urgent runs beyond the Hereford defence but botching the goalscoring attempts.

Graham Turner’s team managed their first shot in the 32nd minute - a loose blast over the bar from Clint Easton - which seemed to sum up their own potency against a United rearguard which included the combative Darren Campion for the first time this season in place of the dropped and out-of-sorts Evan Horwood.

But it was the moment Richard Rose leapt onto a free header five minutes later that snagged in the mind. He made nothing of the chance, but there on the screen was Carlisle’s lingering inability to deal with corner kicks. More of which shortly.

Whatever inspired Turner’s troops at the break, Carlisle were about to veer off in the opposite direction. From the whistle, Hereford were notably superior in all their second-half work. Rose had a shot blocked in the half’s opening seconds, then beat Alnwick to a free-kick and headed just over.

Then the Bulls finally gored their supposed tormentors. N’Gotty, who must wonder what to make of these surroundings after previous days with AC Milan and Marseille, led a purposeful attack from the back which brought a corner. United scuffled and scrambled as the delivery came in, but the ball only popped up for Williams, and the striker, on loan from Bristol Rovers, fired it into the top corner off Joyce’s knee.

The beleaguered Ward then made his substitutions, introducing Scott Dobie and Myrie-Williams, but his team had long since become an inspiration-free zone. Hereford easily absorbed all Carlisle’s bluster and mounted a succession of counter-attacks, which saw Alnwick deny Williams, Guinan head fractionally wide and then Williams rip one over the bar after wriggling free from Raven, with Keogh now removed from view after his shove on Guinan by the touchline (the Hereford man was booked for his own part in proceedings).

That shabby episode was the perfect emblem for Carlisle’s increasingly chaotic way of life. Salvation, of a sort, comes with the imminent return to fitness of Peter Murphy, but let there be no attempt to cast the badly-missed Dubliner as this team’s great redeemer (particularly since Josh Gowling might in fact be the next cab off the rank and into the back four alongside Livesey).

One returning player can make a level of difference, but winching Carlisle out of the sewer is a job which now requires considerable extra manpower. Ward, and those around him, are losing time and patience in their attempt to prove their fitness for that demanding task.

BEN ALNWICK - Could do little about the winner, otherwise kept goal steadily apart from one misjudgement at a Hereford free-kick.

DAVID RAVEN - Didn’t do a great deal wrong but the right-back was by no means at his most comfortable.

DARREN CAMPION - Didn’t let the side down in his first outing of the season. Defended aggressively, although troubled by Williams a couple of times after the break.

DANNY LIVESEY - One of many players whose confidence seems to have crashed. Will he return to form alongside Gowling or Murphy?

RICHARD KEOGH - Given several awkward moments by home attackers before rash of indiscipline which led to red card.

LUKE JOYCE - Promising first-half contribution but had no influence as Hereford dominated the second period.

GRAHAM KAVANAGH - Along with Joyce, he bossed the midfield in early stages but missed a decent chance and cut a frustrated figure as the game went on.

SIMON HACKNEY - Largely contained by the home defence and replaced in the second half after United fell behind.

CLEVELAND TAYLOR - Didn’t contribute enough to the attacking effort, Hereford’s rearguard kept him quiet.

DANNY GRAHAM - Unable to take a couple of early chances and had little impact on matters afterwards.

DANNY CARLTON - Set up first half chances with urgent running but failed to take them on another goalless outing.

Subs: Scott Dobie (for Hackney, 63) - One deflected shot but little else of note. 5; Jennison Myrie-Williams (for Graham, 74) - Deserves credit for having a go in closing stages. 6; Josh Gowling (for Campion, 81) - Helped out depleted defence as Campion tired. 6.