Serious questions for ‘naive’ Carlisle United as they suffer a crushing 5-0 defeat to York City on Tuesday night.
The Minstermen ended Carlisle’s four-match winning streak, York dominated with three first-half goals with Malachi Fagan-Walcott netting in the 4th minute, Ollie Pearce converted a penalty in the 39th and added another goal just before the break. Alex Newby and substitute Josh Stones added to the hammered in the second half.
The result sees York climb up to 5th in the National League with 18 points from 9 games, while Carlisle drop a place to 3rd with 23 points from 11 games.
An incredible performance as York thrash Carlisle 5-0😳@YorkCityFC | #YCFC | @NL_Enterprise pic.twitter.com/Ur5TdVCjGU
— National League on DAZN (@DAZN_NationalLg) September 23, 2025
📝 Exposed at every turn, in every way. How much damage does a night like this cause? The verdict on Carlisle United’s 5-0 defeat at York City ⤵️ #cufc @newsandstar (£)
READ: https://t.co/g01N5ge98vhttps://t.co/g01N5ge98v
— Jon Colman (@joncolman) September 24, 2025
Speaking to CUTV, Mark Hughes said: “We got off to a really poor start, obviously came out too readily, didn’t wait for the ball to be totally cleared, so we conceded after a very short period of time, and then, it was difficult from that moment on, it seemed.
“We’re very unlucky with obviously the penalty clearly offside, 2-0, that obviously gets their tails up and they’re enjoying the game and in saying that, still thought we had a foothold on the game.
“We needed to get to half-time at 2-0 and then regroup, but made the fatal mistake of conceding right at the end, 3-0. It’s nigh on impossible to get back into that game, but you say all the right things in the dressing room, and then we come out and we concede again.
“So, very easy evening for them really, they can pick and choose their moments then and hit us on the break, good quality players at the top end of the pitch that can make the right decisions and test you in 1v1s.
“We were poor in our duels today, too many times we just knocked off the ball or came out with the ball individually and collectively, so that’s not what we’ve been about.
“The reason we’ve got 23 points at this point in the season is because we’ve had a good shape and we’ve battled hard and we’ve made it difficult for opposition teams, but made it too easy for the opposition today, albeit they played well, you have to give it to them, but for my point of view we could have done a lot better today.”
On the differences between the performance against York and Altrincham: “I think the lads had a go, I don’t think anybody has just not tried, clearly we were trying to get back into the game.
“But when you’re obviously conceding 2-3 goals and you try and get back in the game, you take more risk, and that means that you’re more in danger on turnovers, and they’re very adept at transitional play, and so that was always going to be the case.
“We needed to get back into the game as early as possible, but unfortunately, we weren’t able to do that. The second goal and the third goal are just taking the game away from us.”
On the manner of the defeat: “We had a really great performance as a team on the weekend, difficult circumstances down at ten men, who knows, maybe that just took the edge off our play tonight.
“It’s not an excuse, but I just think at times we were just half a yard short and that enabled them just to get on the front foot, so you have to cut the lads a little bit of slack in terms of that, but a lot of the mistakes we made were of our own making.
“Listen, we’ve got to put this to bed, we’re in a good situation, we lost the battle, we want to win the war, that’s the key, so it’s still early days.”
On whether he considered making changes at half time, he said: “I thought they needed to go out again and prove me wrong in fairness, so I kept them out there, like I said, the third goal is the one that’s really taken the game away from us.
“So at that stage later on the game you’re thinking well damage limitation really, because we had to protect a few of the players that have put a good stint in this season up to this point, so we made substitutions with that in mind and we’ve got a big game at the weekend, so this game had gone, so we need to get on with it.”
On what the message was to the players, he said: “We can’t dwell on this, there was elements of a play that would have helped us if we were able to be consistent and sustain it for the 90 minutes.
“We weren’t able to do that today, but at the weekend up against another good team who will test us, but we won’t have a similar scenario, I can assure you.”
And on the fantastic travelling support, he said: “We haven’t given anything at all to get behind, unfortunately, and that’s disappointing for us all, but they know we’ll be ready to go at the weekend and we’ll have to put that away.”
Alex Gilliead said to CUTV: “Disappointing first of all. We’ve got to apologise to the fans for the performance and the score. It’s obviously not what we’re set out for, not what we’re about as a team and as a club.
“We’re going to have to put it to bed quickly because we’ve got big games coming up. It’s three points dropped, but we know we can’t let that happen again.
“They were a good side and they were at it. We kind of let them get into a rhythm with that first goal, which put us on the back foot straight away. The manner of the goals we conceded just isn’t good enough, and we know that.
“At 2-0, as senior players we needed to just get in at the break and manage the game. But we couldn’t do that, and the third goal — just another one we don’t want to concede — made it really tough.
“We tried to come out and play with pride. I’ve been in games like that before, and it’s about sticking at it. We’ve got a few young lads in there alongside the experienced ones, so it’s about showing some fight — but it wasn’t meant to be.
“At Altrincham, we imposed our game. Tonight, we didn’t do that. Conceding goals early in both halves — it kills you. We never got any momentum, and when you’re always chasing, it’s hard.
“It’s massively frustrating. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s just three points. We’ve got to dust ourselves down and go again — try and put another run together.”
“Maybe they were just more at it. They got the early goal, they had their tails up, and we couldn’t knock them off their rhythm,” he said. “We had a few half-chances, but it didn’t amount to anything.”
“Just thank you. They’re a big help for us when they travel in numbers like that. We let them down tonight, but we’ll bounce back — we want to show them what we’re made of again on Saturday.
“These games are coming quickly — and that’s a good thing. We can put this behind us fast. We’re already looking forward to Saturday.”
Here’s the fan reaction with serious questions for ‘naive’ Carlisle as they suffer a crushing 5-0 defeat to York…
@Chris_CA2: There’s the Carlisle we know and love. Good to be back.
@Heskeyy: Thought we were in it until the fifth
@sheri_91: Never mind lads just 7 or so quality additions and I think we can compete against the top sides
@ronniecastle4th: Hughes is simply not capable of getting us back into the football league. He won’t relegate us or anything daft, but against half decent opposition he just can’t hack it and we’ll be mid-table. I hate to say it but we ain’t going anywhere in the foreseeable future.
@Up_TheChickens: That’s the Carlisle we all know and love 😂
@lew30767: Possibly the worst we’ve played in the last 2.5 years, can’t wait to play an ever better team on Saturday
@joeleigh95: We have had some awful performances in the last 3 years.. and I’m still struggling to think of one worse than that.. didn’t fancy our chances from seeing the poor line up, still didn’t expect us to play like a bunch of mongs, but we probably needed bringing back down to earth.
@Matthewgaskell9: Should of been 8, hughes under massive pressure. Play one good team and he absolutely shits the bed with his team selection and subs. Absolutely pathetic
@Dan26834978: We did warn you about Hughes ,tactically inept. But he always manages to paper over cracks with some results against the shite. Cook carried him that season with us and dug him out of so much shit and it seems like linney is doing the same now.
@OllieBinks94: Hughes showing how tactically inept he is, going back to a system that saw us well beaten by Sutton. Not learning from it, and being too stubborn/arrogant to change what wasn’t working again today. To be 3-0 down at half time and to persist with the system and team is criminal.
@CG85GC: Awful performance tonight. We didn’t give anything, and we just looked lost. Back 4 were all over the place.
@YCFC1922_: Close one lads. Could’ve gone either way at the end of the day…
@samtheshrimp18: Look what happens when you finally play one of the top 8 teams in the league 😭😂
@CarlisleSaint: Questions need to be asked. First decent side we have played and got taken to pieces for the full 90 minutes. Getting beat by a fine margin, is OK, 5-0 shows a soft under belly that runs through the squad. Not even close to competing. Rochdale is a must win to show we can compete
@Ry_CUFC: Should’ve been changed as soon as they got their second goal. What an absolute embarrassment that was from the first minute. Absolutely outclassed in every single area of the pitch and Hughes too stubborn to make early changes.
@JayHyde87: Welcome to the National League lads. How we go from getting beat Saturday by Solihull to spanking uses I’ll never know. The magic of NL football. Safe trip home
— Dan Bateman (@dan_batemannn) September 23, 2025
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