Three Things We Learnt From Carlisle United’s Shock Victory Over Peterborough United – Opinion

Carlisle United caused arguably the shock of the day on Good Friday as they beat promotion hopefuls Peterborough United 3-1 away from home, and it’s hard to say the result wasn’t deserved.

It could be perceived as one of the performances of the season for Carlisle who look to not go down without a fight this season. After drawing with play-off hopefuls Stevenage last week, the win against Peterborough further emphasises that there is some hope for the club and fans next season.

An incredible Jon Mellish hat-trick would put the visitors three goals to the good in the first 60 minutes, something that very few would’ve predicted. Mellish operated as a central-midfielder but has also been heavily utilised as a centre-half this season and perhaps Paul Simpson may now have a slightly better idea where to deploy the fan favourite after finding some goalscoring form.

Joel Randall would pull one back in the 61st minute but that would prove to be merely a consolation as a spirited Carlisle defence protected Harry Lewis’ goal for the last half an hour to earn their first victory of the season in their controversial away shirt.

On what was a great day for the Cumbrians, was an awful day for Posh. Darren Ferguson’s side were well and truly not at the races and a sense of complacency may well have set in. Almost every header or 50/50 seemed to be won by an away shirt and hardly any positives can be taken for the home side.

With Barnsley losing as well, Peterborough do stay in fourth but now look to have lost any sort of chance of automatic promotion with a ten point gap to second placed Derby. The play-offs are once again calling their name, and that’s probably not something that too many Posh fans are looking forward to.

Carlisle stay at the bottom of the table but as mentioned, these last few games are all about pride and building into next season with the club needing a miracle to stay up at this point.

With that in mind, here’s three things we learnt from Carlisle United’s shock victory over Peterborough United…

Peterborough will not gain automatic promotion

Starting with the obvious, the result more or less killed off any chance that Darren Ferguson’s side had of going up automatically. Although they may still have two games in hand on second-placed Derby County, there’s a ten point gap between the two sides.

With just a handful of games left this season it looks almost impossible that Posh catch the Rams, and even if they did, they also have Bolton and Barnsley to worry about. A truly awful run in February certainly did not aid any promotion chances, but Ferguson’s side had looked if they were back to their best earlier this month.

It is however now back-to-back losses for the club, who will now be looking to bounce back in their game against Leyton Orient on Monday prior to their EFL Trophy final against Wycombe Wanderers next weekend.

Carlisle will be a tough team to face in League Two next season

It’s been a truly torrid year for the Cumbrians who have seen somewhat out of their depth back in the third tier. With a 13 point gap to safety and just six games to go, it is almost a certainty that they’ll be playing in League Two again next season.

However the win over Peterborough would’ve given players, coaches and fans alike, plenty of confidence going into next season. It was an all-round great performance from Paul Simpson’s men and bar not keeping a clean sheet, very few negatives can be taken.

Next season’s squad already seems to be taking shape and the selection against Peterborough may well be the side that Simpson uses for the rest of the season before taking it into next year.

Peterborough may have been thinking about the EFL Trophy Final

There is indeed no easy game in League One however that’s not exactly something that the Peterborough players may have thought before the game and they perhaps didn’t give their opponents enough respect. They were truly punished as a result and it was an extremely flat performance from the promotion-hopefuls.

It was a fairly full-strength side put out by Ferguson and there can be very few complaints about the manner of the defeat.

Perhaps the players may have already been thinking about the EFL Trophy final next weekend against Wycombe, that would at least give some explanation for the performance. Nonetheless it was an extremely disappointing showing from Posh who have lost any sort of recent momentum with back-to-back losses.

Ferguson will no doubt want improvements on Monday against Leyton Orient, and they’ll need to be drastic ones if they want to take anything from the game.

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