United are back at home this weekend with last season’s League Two champions Leyton Orient making the long trip north from London.
As for the Blues, it’s been a case of finding their feet this season with a slow start overcome by a better run of recent form.
“They won the division really comfortably last season, so it shows it isn’t easy, and it is a big step up,” manager Paul Simpson said. “We’re all adapting to it, we’ve just got to make sure we get our performance right.
“We need to play the game and forget about anything that has gone before. Let’s make it a really good Carlisle United occasion in terms of the fans with their behaviour, and with our football to make it a really good day for our club.
“Nothing much has changed, they’re still a very good team. They’re still trying to play football and build from the back. They’ve got good midfield players and forwards who are effective.
“They’ve brought Joe Pigott in who is a real focal point for them and they’ve still got Archibald who has got a wand of a left foot. It’s going to be a tough game but it’s a game we’re really looking forward to.
“We think we’ve got players who can cause them problems, and if we have the same mentality we had last weekend, but we do it on our own stage, then we can make it a good day for ourselves.
“They’ll be fired up for it, but we are as well. I think it’s quite strange because everybody is saying they’ve had a decent start, but if we can get three points on Saturday we’ll go level on points with them and ahead on goal difference, so we’ve got to make sure we do it properly.”
And it is two teams who tend to know how to put on a show.
“It should be good to watch because I do think we’re two good sides,” he commented. “It’s two sides who I accept are still adapting to League One.
“They’ve adapted slightly better than us so far, but we’ve got to make sure we carry on adapting and carry on improving to take us through the rest of the season and make sure we have a good one.
“We’ve seen that we can adapt with the formations and shapes we’ve used, sometimes changing within games, because each one is proving to be different.
“I thought we had a shape and a style about us that was really effective. We made the change to a back four a few weeks ago because I felt it was the right way to go about it.
“Hunts has got himself injured and we didn’t have Ben Barclay fit, but I chose to go with a back four anyway because I still had Corey available. I decided a back four was the right way to go about it, but this weekend is another different game against a different style.
“I think Orient used three different shapes within their game last weekend, so it’ll be a challenge, but the majority is about us and how we prepare and go about our game. Hopefully that will be enough to get a positive result.
“With those changes I mentioned, my head had been saying for a few weeks that we were losing some forward play, because we were quite negative. I always tried to think of it as a back three, but we were actually being a back five, which I didn’t like.
“Changing it to go with a four, and Callum sitting, gave us the security at the back, but also gave us more going forward. Whether it’s just a coincidence that we’ve managed to score some goals, I don’t know, or whether it’s the shape, but it’s going to have to be a case that I’m having to think more.
“I’m going to have to look more as a coach at how we’re going to affect games and what’s going to be right. This one will be another weekend where we’re going to have to think tactically about what’s the right way to get a result for ourselves.
“It’s about finding a way – I have to find a way with this group of players to get results. One thing we do know is that we need more goals.
“Sean Maguire and Joe Garner have chipped in with a few, obviously Gibbo has jumped ahead of them now after his hat-trick, but they’re both getting into good areas.
“We need to be more clinical, which might sound a bit daft after scoring three goals away from home. We want goals from everywhere.
“We’re threatening to score from set plays, we’re getting good deliveries in at times, and good positive runs, but we’re not getting the goals. We want them to come again. Last season they were a big part of our success so we want that back again.”
Last season’s meeting between these sides up in Carlisle was a feisty affair, with the fans taking out some of their frustrations on the opposition bench.
“We can’t have what happened last season, we have to behave ourselves,” the manager commented. “There are all sorts of things that go on in technical areas.
“I hope there’s no goading from the dugouts but I really don’t want our supporters to get the football club in trouble and get themselves in trouble.
“We’ve had enough silly things going on, we don’t need that. Our fans are real die-hard supporters, so let’s not get ourselves in trouble by doing stupid stuff, which happened last year.
“However they think they’ve been encouraged to do it, let’s not do it. I like Richie, I played with him at Blackpool and he is a fiery man. He wants to say his piece, so we all just have to keep it at a level and make sure it’s banter and nothing more than that.
“We know how good our fans are. We just hope they’re coming in numbers again because they’re really important to us. I’m expecting it to be another good crowd, especially after what we had last weekend.
“I think the fans are coming on board with us, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. I think they’ve been on board for the past couple of seasons and the players have given them something to come on board for.
“The big thing is we’ve just got to keep going and trying to get the results that go with the support we’re getting. Hopefully we can keep it going this weekend.”
Missing on the touchline as he serves the second game of his suspension will be Dave Timmins, who will be deputized on this occasion by academy keeper coach Roman Caig.
“It’s going to be a really good experience for him,” he said. “Dave’s doing all of the prep work for it and he’ll all of the set plays in our final session with the players.
“The keepers are really regimented in how they do things, they’re very structured, so it’s him being there to make sure they get the right preparation.
“It’ll be a big test for him serving those balls for the keepers in front of a crowd. It’s good experience for him and that’s what we have to do as a club, we have an academy with staff who we have to try and help, so it’s good that we can give him an insight into this side of it with the first team.”