A very much below par performance saw us lucky to come away with a point against a one dimensional Cheltenham side.

We started with a 4-3-3 line up, the now usual back four, with Palmer, Rose and Langley in midfield and Thomas, Connolly and Gallen upfront.

A good start saw us take the lead in the 10th minute, after Thomas had already caused havoc in the home defence and put Gallen through only for the keeper to make a decent save and Cheltenham had hit the post from a free kick. The goal came when a poor clearance across the front of the home penalty area found Thomas, who curled a first time shot into the top corner.

Having taken the lead though, we dropped back and tried to defend it when further pressure would surely have resulted in more goals. It's never a good idea to have Palmer and Rose both playing in midfield at the best of times, and we were quickly being over run in that area by the four Cheltenham midfield players who Langley at times seemed to be playing on his own.

With the defence, and Shittu in particular, struggling to cope with the size and muscularity of the huge Alsop up front for the Robins there was a quick reversion to 3-5-2, with Palmer dropping back from looking like a fish out of water in midfield to have a good game in the back three.

Thomas, presumably, was supposed to drop back into the midfield but he simply never gets back to defend so this was likely to cause a problem, and in fact it left Williams exposed on numerous occasions. With Rose having one of his many ineffectual games in midfield, Langley was still too often outnumbered in the midfield area.

Still, the switch had the effect of tightening us up at the back, but it also meant that we dropped even deeper and failed to get forward enough in support of the strikers.

It was left to the marauding runs of Thomas with the ball to create any danger, and too often he ended up being crowded out or continually fouled by the home defenders, the persistence of which it seemed the referee was prepared to do nothing about.As a consequence, we created nothing more of note until the half time interval.

We stepped up the pace a bit at the start of the second half, and for a short time it looked as though we might add a second, as Williams and Forbes started to get forward on the flanks.

An excellent volley from Langley after some nice passing went only just wide, but shortly after that Gallen, who had been playing well, our only front player who was actually holding the ball up and retaining possession, left the field to be replaced by Thomson. It wasn't entirely clear why this was as Gallen certainly did not appear to be carrying an injury. It seemed a strange choice of replacement, with the home side having to push forward in search of an equaliser, one would have thought that the pace of Oli would have been more useful.With no outlet to hold the ball up front, and Thomas (clearly not match fit) struggling to make any impact, unsurprisingly Cheltenham got on top.

After hitting the woodwork for a second time from a free kick, it came as no surprise when the equaliser came. Shittu, who was blatently fouled but ignored by the referee early on in the build up to the goal, eventually lost possession on the right, and the ball was crossed for the unmarked Devaney to score from close range.

Oli belatedly now came on for the increasingly poor Connolly in an attempt to change the game around, and we got back on top as the home side seemed happy with a point. Carlisle, presumably not satisfied with the inept performance of the forward line, started to make some very effective runs with the ball from defence.

These looked very promising until after the latest one had won us a corner the referee decided to send him off for a presumably off the ball incident.

Despite now playing against ten men, Cheltenham were still happy to hold on for a point and not go for a win with the result that we did the rest of the attacking for the remaining few minutes. But, just like for the majority of the game, we were unable to create any meaningful opportunities and we had to be content with the one point.