The early season optimism has now all but evaporated following this dismal home defeat to a poor Exeter City side.
Four successive defeats have sucked the confidence out of the Cumbrians leaving manager Ian Atkins with the difficult task of getting his players out of the losing habit.
He said: "We dominated the game for long periods but lacked quality in certain areas. Considering the amount of ball we had in the opponents box we didn't make the keeper work hard enough. We could have done better with chances we had, we hit the post in the last minute and the players say that Richard Prokas' header was way over the line in stoppage time.
The players are working hard, but the breaks at the moment are not going with us, but we will keep plugging away."
Atkins will have more options at Darlington next week following the two temporary signings of French forward Stephan Lemarchand and Stockport County left back Ben Johnson.
The slump in attendances, down a third since the start of the season, will be a worry for the Carlisle board. Their plight was not helped by a particularly dour game with some poor refereeing decisions which saw eight players booked in a game with very few serious tackles.
It took 13 minutes to conjure up the first goal effort when an Anthony Carss one-two with Ian Stevens played the midfielder in only to shoot wide of the post. Four minutes later a good turn and cross from Steve Soley saw Tony Hemmings head narrowly wide. On 31 minutes a spectacular block by the visitors Graeme Power stopped Scott Dobie getting on the end of Hemming's cross.
The Grecians took the lead on 37 minutes when Steve Flack, running away from goal, was allowed to turn by Stuart Whitehead and thunder an unstoppable thirty yard right foot shot past a despairing Luke Weaver.
The visitors were content to sit on their lead in the second half and the Cumbrians lacked the ingenuity to break down a solid Exeter defence.
The Cumbrians first shot on target came on 70 minutes when the ball broke to Steve Soley on the edge of the box but his shot was comfortably save by the visitors Dutch keeper Arjan Van Heusden.
A frantic last minute almost saw the home side equalise with Ian Stevens hitting a post from a Mark Birch cross, Hemmings having a shot cleared off the line and a Prokas header judged not to have crossed the line.
Carlisle United: Weaver; Birch (McAughtrie 90), Whitehead, Darby, Winstanley, Hemmings; Soley (Prokas 72), Carss; Dobie, Stevens, Heggs (Lee 53). Subs unused: Pitts, Tracey.
Scorers: None
Bookings: Heggs (3), Stevens (39), Hemmings (59)
Exeter City:Van Heusden; Whitworth, Power, Buckle, Curran, Roscoe (Ampaduk 73), Flack, Rawlinson, Campbell, C. Roberts (Ashton 90), Zabeck. Subs not used: D. Roberts, Tomlinson, Fraser.
Scorers: Flack (37)
Booking: Roberts (33), Whitworth (41), Van Heusden (45), Campbell (55), Flack (61)
Attendance: 2,856
Referee: G. Laws (Whitley Bay)
