MIKE Williamson is no longer the head coach of Carlisle United and in the aftermath, we took a look at how the numbers reflect on his tenure at Brunton Park.
Williamson was dismissed on Monday, February 3 following the Blues' 5-1 dismantling at the hands of Swindon Town at Brunton Park. The second managerial dismal of a disappointing and spiraling season.
Rewinding the clock to August 2024, four games into Carlisle United's 2024/25 campaign, Paul Simpson was relieved of his duties off the back of a 2-1 defeat against Tranmere Rovers.
Following this decision, Blues chairman Tom Piatak promised 'front foot' and 'fun football' from United's next coach, with Mike Williamson duly anointed as the man to bring this philosophy to North Cumbria and instigate an upturn of form.
Williamson's style, a 3-4-2-1 system, challenged his Carlisle United players to play with the ball at their feet. This was a style that proved divisive amongst supporters, with frustrations increasing every time the former Newcastle United defender mentioned 'xG' or 'box entries' in his post-match briefings.
As Carlisle prepare for a new era under a new head coach, we took a look at how the stats reflect on Mike Williamson's reign at Brunton Park.
As mentioned, Mike Williamson was appointed with the remit of steadying Carlisle's disappointing early run under Paul Simpson which saw them lose three of their first four games.
However, did Williamson during his tenure inspire an upturn in the Blues' fortunes in the weeks following his appointment?
Whilst it is important to recognise that Simpson was only in the dugout for four league matches at the beginning of the 24/25 campaign, while Williamson managed 22, Simpson at the point of his dismissal had been at the helm at Brunton Park for over two years and had presided over the club's preparations for their return to League Two after relegation from the third tier.
Following the departure of Simpson and under Williamson, Carlisle saw their average expected goals (xG) per game, which is a stat that measures how likely a shot is to result in a goal, rise from 1.04 to 1.14, big chances created per game, with a big chance defined by Opta as a 'situation where a player should reasonably be expected to score', rise from 0.5 to 1.8 and errors leading to a shot or goal per game fall from 1 to 0.27.
However, Simpson's start to the season trumps Williamson's tenure in terms of final third entries per game, 75 to 54, and touches in the penalty area per game, which fell from 20 to 18.
For fans in the Warwick Road End at Brunton Park, this 'number soup' may not mean to much, however, issues that plagued Williamson's Carlisle United are plain to see in the statistics.
Five points currently separate Carlisle United from safety on the League Two table, and the Blues are also in the doldrums in terms of the goalscoring charts.
To date, Carlisle have scored 22 goals in 28 league matches, with 14 of these coming in Williamson's 22 league fixtures in charge.
This toothlessness is also present when it comes to xG and big chances, despite the established increase from Simpson to Williamson.
In nine of Williamson's 22 league matches, Carlisle had a greater xG than their opponents, however, only claimed victory in one of these, their 2-1 traveling victory against Pete Wild's Fleetwood Town in mid-January.
These stats are made more damning by the fact that the Blues created 40 big chances in 22 games but missed 28 in the same timeframe, an average of 1.2 big chances missed per game.
This trend of wasting presented opportunities was also evident in some of Williamson's better results, with his side missing seven big chances in their pair of 2-1 victories against Accrington Stanley and the aforementioned three points against Fleetwood.
Carlisle fans thought they could expect an upturn in their team's fortunes once the January window opened and Williamson did strengthen, with Cedwyn Scott, Joe Hugill, and Joe Bevan being drafted in as offensive reinforcements, however, admittedly only the first two have had a chance to impact.
Hugill and Scott would both see strikes hit the back of the net in the first month of 2025 and the sides' average xG in their six January fixtures would jump to 1.35 but this came too late for the seemingly condemned Carlisle coach.
Aside from xG, Mike Williamson's other buzzword was 'box entries'. Defined in many statistical circles as an indicator of a side's ability to craft goal-scoring opportunities, however, given Carlisle's outlined net finding deficiencies in addition to a decline in final third entries per game and touches in the penalty per game, it is evident that Carlisle have had trouble starting and finishing scoring moves.
In the face of his side's goal-scoring woes, Williamson remained steadfast in his efforts to install his philosophy, a style in which players were asked to play football and weave together moves. A style that when it worked led to sweeping moves but when it didn't saw Carlisle create their own problems.
Frustrations would be vented at Brunton Park when a defender dithered on the ball perilously close to the Carlisle goal.
Statistically, the Blues under Mike Williamson are recorded in a similar fashion. In the departed head coach's 22 league matches, Carlisle were dispossessed 188 times at an average of nearly nine times per game.
It is important to note that Paul Simpson's side were also dispossessed 35 times in his four-game run at the beginning of the campaign, however under Williamson, the Blues also made six errors that led directly to a shot or a goal, a sign that Carlisle had trouble adapting to a ball heavy style of playing.
Mike Williamson's tenure was brought to an end by Swindon Town at Brunton Park, with five of the most important stat going against his side and Carlisle now looking to appoint their third head coach of the season.
Statistics cited in this article were sourced from Fotmob, Sofascore, and Whoscored.
