Salford suffered a gruesome last-gasp defeat to relegation-threatened Carlisle after substitutes combined from a corner.
A last-minute corner from Harrison Biggins found the head of Ben Barclay producing Carlisle’s first victory in seven.
Barclay, who had only been on the field for three minutes, managed to make the crucial contact required to find the back of the net sending the 1,366 travelling Carlisle fans into dreamland.
Carlisle have been a side short of form lately and came into this match sat 23rd in League Two with Salford requiring a win to take themselves into a temporary playoff spot.
The game itself had its moments of interest, a first half that saw no goals was dominated by Salford.
Their best chance fell to Ossama Ashley just before the half-time whistle, receiving the ball after a well worked move from the home side but failing to beat the keeper from across goal.
Carlisle came close to opening the scoring early on during a five-minute period of attacks from both sides, culminating in a simple opportunity for ex-Salford man Luke Armstrong.
After a valiant run from Dominic Sadi, who eventually came away with the ball from Curtis Tilt, led to a cross in and the ball fell bouncing to Armstrong who blazed over the bar from 16 yards.
It was youngster Kyrell Malcolm who had Salford’s best chance of the second half. The seventeen-year-old made his second appearance for the club after getting brought on at half-time for Jon Taylor.
The ball came to him down the right flank and with acres of space, he struggled to find composure when he reached the box, shaping for a shot, the ball went across goal and was picked up by keeper Gabriel Breeze safely.
Salford were made to pay for their wastefulness in front of goal after 88 minutes when Barclay rose highest to power home Biggin’s inviting corner.
Our unbeaten run comes to an end.
0-1 | #SALCRL pic.twitter.com/CuNbPoSzoQ
— Salford City FC (@SalfordCityFC) November 9, 2024
Salford manager Karl Robinson spoke briefly after the game, “I’m pleased with the performance for probably about 80% of it, but it’s so frustrating.
“Everything’s so close in this league, if we don’t put our foot down now and put a run together again and that’s part of how you take defeats is going to be your support mechanism.
“We need to score more goals. Even when we were winning, we were still hanging on at 2-1 or 1-0 at stages. We’ve got to look at recruitment in January, we’ve got to find players in the final third that score goals.”
Salford Now will have a full piece on Karl Robinson’s post match interview on Monday.
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