The Piataks’ Carlisle United autopsy hinges on one crucial factor | OneFootball

The club's American owners have to get their assessment of what has gone wrong since they've come in right.

Carlisle United's owners, the Piatak family, have promised full transparency and accountability in their review into what caused the club to be relegated from the football league for only the second time in the club's history.

As soon as the final whistle blew against Cheltenham Town on Saturday, who, ironically, sent Carlisle down back in 2004 too, the calls from supporters for those at the top of the footballing side of the club to be gone hugely intensified.

It was suddenly all real. The few weeks of positivity that had been built up since the 3-2 comeback win over Newport County had been blown to pieces by the reality that the Blues, all of a sudden, have just one game left before they leave the EFL.

One man, the club's sporting director Rob Clarkson, has already paid the price for this season's failings. It was announced on Monday that the former FA, Manchester City and Rangers operator had been removed from his position with immediate effect, and there is an expectation that more will follow in the coming weeks.

While a mass culling may be satisfying in the short-term, it is by no means guaranteed to fix things in the long run.

The crucial factor to the Piataks' Carlisle United autopsy

A statement from Tom Piatak, the Carlisle chairman, following the 3-2 defeat to Cheltenham, said that a complete review of what went wrong in the 2024/25 campaign has already begun. "Everything is being examined," the Florida-based businessman stated. "There will be no shortcuts. No excuses. No sacred cows. Where change is needed, change will happen."

If this review does indeed lead to other senior figures, like Greg Abbott, the head of recruitment, and Nigel Clibbens, the chief executive, leaving Brunton Park in the same way that Clarkson has, there will be a massive gap left at the head of the football part of the football club.

The American owners have self-professed their lack of football knowledge compared to those who have been involved in the game for years and years, and yet the decisions to bring in Mike Williamson from MK Dons in September when he was one more loss away from being sacked, and then keep him throughout the January window just to get rid of him at the end of it - two big decisions which cost the club dearly - were heavily backed and publicly endorsed by the chairman.

The feeling is that they can't be trusted, on their own, to decipher the problems at the football club. They are very smart business people - that statement is undoubted - but this is not their realm of expertise. Someone with more credibility and, equally importantly, independence from the happenings at Brunton Park over the last 18 months has to lead this investigation.

Who will that person be? Honestly, who knows at this point? Everything is up in the air.

That first question may open up an entirely new can of worms. Maybe it'll be the current first-team boss, Mark Hughes. Although he's been there for the latter part of the downfall, it can in no way be put on his shoulders, and his expertise would be quite helpful to the relatively inexperienced owners.

The Piataks can't only look for faults in the 2024/25 campaign

This rot that has eventually led to Carlisle's EFL demise had set in long before their first game of the season against Gillingham, although there were certainly signs then too.

After an amazing triumph of a campaign in 2022/23 when they won the play-offs at Wembley to take themselves up to League One for the first time in a decade, it quickly became clear that the club was way out of its depth.

That November was when the Jacksonville family officially took over, but despite their huge financial backing of the club, things have gotten worse and worse on the pitch since then.

The choice to allow club legend Paul Simpson to continue as the manager despite the awful 2023/24 season - a choice which split the opinions of many supporters - ultimately proved to be the wrong one. A lot of recruitment that was done in that term has also contributed to the current situation.

The Piataks aren't going to be able to determine the ultimate causality by solely examining Carlisle's return to League Two. They must look at the bigger picture because there's a lot more to it than they may be led to believe.