Carlisle United supporters should look at Stockport County to calm themselves after Georgie Kelly’s comments: View | OneFootball

The Blues have hit a bit of a bump in their pre-season.

Carlisle United's loss to Rochdale AFC led to some very revealing comments by striker Georgie Kelly.

The match on Saturday saw Carlisle lose their first match of this pre-season, with the National League side coming away with a 2-1 home victory against Paul Simpson's promotion hopefuls.

The game saw United struggle to create chances and generally look a bit sloppy on the ball. Misplaced passes, loose touches, and a general void of any sort of spark left many supporters feeling glum about what had happened.

Those sentiments of unhappiness were echoed by the Irish forward, who was equally displeased with the way that he and his teammates went about their business against Rochdale.

The former 27-year-old, who joined Carlisle on a permanent deal from Rotherham United in January, said, post the defeat, that the Blues were lacking a bit of cohesion, chemistry, and clarity.

Speaking on CUTV, Kelly said: "It's tricky, isn't it? Not great like. Not what we wanted. I felt like the intent was there. There was no lack of effort. Just things haven't really clicked, especially going forward in terms of creating chances.

"It's just getting used to how we're playing, especially if we're going to play two bigger lads up top, how our style needs to change a bit. We probably just haven't clicked yet, whereas they seem like a seasoned team.

"They've been together for years - the core of their team. Their identity, in terms of how they play, has been like that for years. So you could see the difference in how they were well drilled. They knew what they were doing. We were still a bit cagey."

Carlisle supporters shouldn't be too worried by Kelly's words

Of course, the fact that the Blues put in the performance that they did and then one of their main goal threats came out and said that they haven't clicked as a team yet is going to make some of the United faithful uneasy.

Even if it is just a pre-season game, the aim of Carlisle for this upcoming season is a clear one, and performing like that against teams in the division below isn't what you'd maybe expect to see from a team that is aiming for promotion.

There are, however, a few mitigating factors that should calm the nerves of those who are becoming a bit twitchy about what's to come.

Firstly, it's pre-season. Although some may consider it to be foreshadowing of what is to come in the season, the results and performances in these friendlies do not ultimately determine how a team is going to play for the next 10 months.

This squad that's being assembled by Paul Simpson and Greg Abbott is a very new one, and it takes time to form the bonds and relationships, on the pitch, that Kelly is on about. Of the starting XI from Saturday, Jon Mellish was the only member of the Blues before the start of the January window.

On Saturday, it was evident to see that they weren't a well-oiled machine. These are players that are still trying to work each other out; how and where they like to receive the ball, what runs they tend to make, all that sort of stuff. It just needs time.

Stockport example should give Carlisle hope, despite a poor pre-season result

Even if all of that isn't sorted out by the time that the team travel down to Kent for their opening fixture against Gillingham, it shouldn't be time to press the panic button.

When Carlisle met Stockport County for the first time in League Two, two seasons ago, they were six points off the top three, with a game in hand, and Dave Challinor's side, who'd recently been promoted from the National League, were 16th and on nine fewer points than the Blues.

Fast-forward to 32 games and around five-and-a-half months later and County were one place above United in the table, atop the play-off spots.

Now, we all know how that ended (with Simpson raising the play-off trophy at Wembley), but the moral of the story is this: a slow start does not equal a poor season.

It took Stockport at least a dozen games to find their rhythm, and they haven't looked back since. This could be the blueprint that Carlisle end up following.