Carlisle v Pompey - Good Friday

[cufc17]

Anything less than a win and we're in trouble. Home form has been poor recently, and we're now only 3pts clear of relagation.

Should be a decent attendance, expect a few hundred from Portsmouth who normally travel here in good numbers. However, we need to put in a good performance to get some of the stay-aways back.

I'll go for a 3-1 Carlisle win

 

[shoddycollins]

Possible formation (realistic guess as I'm sure most fans wouldn't pick Grainger, but Curle will)

Gillespie

Young O'Hanlon Meppen-Walter Grainger

Corry Kennedy
Monakana Dempsey

Asamoah Wyke

I can't see this being right either, too many areas of uncertainty. We have very few stand-out players at the moment, and a few issues over fitness of players returning from injury or who are still adjusting to the number of games they're playing. Almost every player in that starting line-up bar Kennedy and Dempsey could be replaced with another player in our squad without it obviously strengthening or weakening us.

Gillespie on the bench last week, will he start this week, or will Hanford continue so as not to rush Gillespie back?
O'Hanlon and Meppen-Walter could both return from injury, but if they do, will they both start? Personally I'd be desperate for O'Hanlon to start at least, we need some experience back there.
Alternatively Atkinson could go in at centre back, he could also play at right back, though I think he would already have done so if Curle thought he was a better option than Young
After making his debut last weekend Buddle may be pushing for his first start as a centre-back, although I think it's less likely he'll be thrown straight into such a big game like this.
Curle has publicly defended Grainger, but he must also feel that Brough is pushing him for his starting place
Rigg or Asamoah up front? Will we continue to rely on Wyke, could Paynter even start? Who knows?

 

[cufc17]

I think he'll go with:
Hanford

Young O'Hanlon Grainger Brough

Monakana Kennedy Corry Dempsey

Wyke Rigg

I'd go with:
Gillespie

Atkinson O'Hanlon Buddle Brough

Monakana Kennedy Corry Dempsey

Asamoah Beck

 

[EricSabin]

How's Del Boy done?

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

I just wonder what damage last week has done really, this could be crucial because defeat here and we're in a real slump at a bad time.

I'd go 4-5-1 it seems like the only formation we seem to win with.

defeat here and well..............I think we're done.

 

[daviejones]

How's Del Boy done?

Got 6 in his first 7 games, hasn't scored since. He gives us another dimension as all of our other strikers are bigger and slower, and as such he makes a good impact sub. He's probably earned the low wage that he's been on all year in those first 7 games alone.

 

[daviejones]

As for my predicted team:
Gillespie
Young O'Hanlon Grainger Brough
Potts/Amoo Kennedy Corry Dempsey
Paynter Wyke

Gillespie might as well come in for Hanford now. Hanford's due a big mistake soon and Gillespie is much better anyway. Young will play, Grainger will play in centre-back, all Curle's opinions not mine of course. Hopefully either Potts or Amoo is back from injury because I don't see any good coming from Monakana's loan here, seems like another headless donkey winger. Paynter and Wyke up top as I have wanted for the past couple of weeks. Curle should at least give Paynter a chance to earn his ridiculous wage.

 

[cufc17]

As for my predicted team:
Gillespie
Young O'Hanlon Grainger Brough
Potts/Amoo Kennedy Corry Dempsey
Paynter Wyke

Gillespie might as well come in for Hanford now. Hanford's due a big mistake soon and Gillespie is much better anyway. Young will play, Grainger will play in centre-back, all Curle's opinions not mine of course. Hopefully either Potts or Amoo is back from injury because I don't see any good coming from Monakana's loan here, seems like another headless donkey winger. Paynter and Wyke up top as I have wanted for the past couple of weeks. Curle should at least give Paynter a chance to earn his ridiculous wage.

I just don't think Paynter is good enough. He still looks as slow as ever, and his only decent attribute is his passing. All of our strikers are out of form at the moment though, so he might get his chance.

Him and Wyke up top would offer us very little in my opinion, both lack pace to get onto knock ons.

 

[EricSabin]

Got 6 in his first 7 games, hasn't scored since. He gives us another dimension as all of our other strikers are bigger and slower, and as such he makes a good impact sub. He's probably earned the low wage that he's been on all year in those first 7 games alone.

Good to hear, love that bloke

 

[daviejones]

I just don't think Paynter is good enough. He still looks as slow as ever, and his only decent attribute is his passing. All of our strikers are out of form at the moment though, so he might get his chance.

Him and Wyke up top would offer us very little in my opinion, both lack pace to get onto knock ons.

I don't think Wyke's too slow to be fair, his goals at Tranmere show that. Our only fast striker is Asamoah and he seems to be devoid of any confidence in front of goal. Paynter's best season was alongside Charlie Austin who is also pretty big, probably a similair size to Wyke actually. Nothing else is working so it's worth a go I guess.

 

[WAP]

I've heard we have sold something like 600-700. Our seasons over (Blame Awford), even if we had something to play for I can't see us getting a result.

Carlisle 2-0.

 

[daviejones]

I've heard we have sold something like 600-700. Our seasons over (Blame Awford), even if we had something to play for I can't see us getting a result.

Carlisle 2-0.

You don't know who you're playing here. If you're a good team on a bad run then we're the ones to play. I can see us losing this one quite badly to be honest, obviously I don't know how good you are but our defence is going to be completely terrible without Troy. A striker with any positional sense or pace should be ashamed if he doesn't score against our likely back 4.

 

[hellogregory]

It's simply a must win game for us. Fail to win and it just about confirms relegation.

Unfortunately we cannot win this match. We'll have Danny Grainger at the heart of the defence, Matt Tubbs gave him a hard time last time he faced him as a center back. I can see Portsmouth putting 6 past us like they did at Cambridge a few weeks back.

If Curle is considering keeping faith with Hanford, he should ask himself this. Is Gillespie better than Hanford? Answer = yes. Therefore Gillespie should play.


Carlisle 1-6 Portsmouth

 

[daviejones]

I would feel bad for Hanford as he's done very little wrong in the past few weeks, but Gillespie is a much better all round keeper. No surprise that our best run before the Shrewsbury game came when Gillespie was in, and we lost 4 on the run when he got injured again.

 

[THE TERRACEMAN]

I really hope Carlisle stay up if for no other reason than the humour you supporters put in your posts. I can feel your pain for your beloved club. Had quite a few similar seasons following Albion in the 70's. Wish you well in every game apart from when you visit us in the "Pirelli derby".

 

[daviejones]

I really hope Carlisle stay up if for no other reason than the humour you supporters put in your posts. I can feel your pain for your beloved club. Had quite a few similar seasons following Albion in the 70's. Wish you well in every game apart from when you visit us in the "Pirelli derby".

Can we just not play that one please. I've previously predicted a 100,000-0 defeat, but going by our Oxford showing it's looking more likely to be at least 150,000-0. Your strikers will each get 10,000 hat tricks each. In all honesty though it seems like our time would be best spent that day if we forfeited the match, took the 3-0 loss seeing as our GD has already gone to shit, and spent the day trying to teach Grainger how to volley a clearance without it hitting his chest and going straight to their player who goes on to score the winner. Not that i'm bitter or anything.

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

Burton is the type of ridiculous game we'd go and win in this mad-cap season.

Still on a positive side if...IF we could win sat it would put a lot of pressure on them others, York playing Cheltenham means one at least drops points, hartlepool I think will lose and Tranmere could well lose.

this is the weekend we have a good chance to open a gap again, but if fail to do so its very very worrying.

 

[hellogregory]

Burton is the type of ridiculous game we'd go and win in this mad-cap season.

Not really. Our record against the top 8 is abysmal. We've taken 1 point from Southend. That's it. And that was under Kavanagh, so Curle's record is even worse.

It's this abysmal record that makes our season boil down to these next 3 games. Anything less than 6 points from these 3 games and we're down.

 

[daviejones]

I think if we win and other results go our way putting us 6 points clear, we'll be fine. I really couldn't see Tranmere and Cheltenham making up an extra point per game on us when they have an even tougher run than us. Beyond that, we have another chance to go clear on Monday when we play Accrington, with Cheltenham and Tranmere having tougher home games against Luton and Stevenage.

 

[WAP]

You don't know who you're playing here. If you're a good team on a bad run then we're the ones to play. I can see us losing this one quite badly to be honest, obviously I don't know how good you are but our defence is going to be completely terrible without Troy. A striker with any positional sense or pace should be ashamed if he doesn't score against our likely back 4.

If you think your defence will be terrible, I see ours being exactly the same. Your missing Troy, we're missing Robinson and Whatmough so maybe there will be goals?

Tubbs is a handful, but we don't create anywhere near enough for him. If you can keep Wallace out the game you'll be onto something.

Whilst I'm not expecting anything from the game, I'll still be pissed off if we do lose.

 

[daviejones]

If you think your defence will be terrible, I see ours being exactly the same. Your missing Troy, we're missing Robinson and Whatmough so maybe there will be goals?

Tubbs is a handful, but we don't create anywhere near enough for him. If you can keep Wallace out the game you'll be onto something.

Whilst I'm not expecting anything from the game, I'll still be pissed off if we do lose.

I think there'll probably be quite a few goals yes. Our attack has been much better than our defence all season, and if you're the same then it should be a good game for the neutral. I think we'll draw or lose, we just don't seem to have much about us against the 'big' teams generally. I'd love to be proved wrong though.

 

[cufc17]

Grainger starts at centre back.
Tubbs - fill your boots

Goals in this, change my prediction to 4-3 cufc...

 

[shoddycollins]

Grainger starts at centre back.
Tubbs - fill your boots

Goals in this, change my prediction to 4-3 cufc...

At least Young's been dropped

 

[daviejones]

Sounded like a cracker from Dempsey. Wonder how much he's worth now.

 

[shoddycollins]

Knew it was too much to be true that we might actually win a game. We are awful

 

[daviejones]

We. are. fucking shit I say we are fucking shit

 

[cufc17]

Totally undeserved point, we were shite for the last 70 minutes. Didn't think we'd equalise, so not too bad. Performance was terrible though, and we'll be down if we keep playing like that.

 

[daviejones]

Shocked that we scored, as you say it was not deserved. Where would we be without Charlie Wyke.

 

[hellogregory]

That first 15-20 was excellent. Why change it? Why rest on 1-0 with 70-75 minutes to go?

Games like today are the season we're relegation certainties, any other team would have won that match today after going 1-0 up so early at home.

We have 3 home games left, we won't win any.

I think we'll get a point on Monday and that will be our total for the season.

 

[Don Tonberry]

How did we play in general?