Carlisle United boss Keith Curle believes his side lacked a killer touch in their 1-0 defeat at Port Vale in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy last night.

Uche Ikpeazu’s second-half strike separated the teams in a uninspiring encounter at Vale Park and put paid to United’s hopes of progressing in the competition that they have won at Wembley on two occasions.

Curle made five changes to the team that secured a first League Two win of the season at Hartlepool on Saturday.

But Carlisle couldn’t find a way to earn their third victory on the trot as Watford loanee Ikpeazu settled it on the hour, despite substitute Jabo Ibehre going close on three occasions for the visitors in the closing stages.

Curle, though, insisted he wasn’t too concerned by his side’s profligacy in the Potteries, saying his charges carved out enough opportunities to have their higher-division opponents on the ropes.

“In the last 15, 20 minutes, I think we created enough chances certainly to win the game, or take it to penalties,” he said.

“I think the pleasing thing was that we got back to our way of playing, how we wanted to play, and we gave them a lot of problems with the ball in the first half without having that cutting edge.

“At times we were a little bit untidy in the final third, but we came to a League One club that have got good players, a good infrastructure and a good balance to their team and we caused them problems.”

Meanwhile, midfielder Danny Kearns was the only mover at United prior to the transfer window closing yesterday after his contract was cancelled by mutual consent.

The Irishman, who made just 12 appearances during his 13-month stay at the club, was freed with 11 months still remaining on his contract.

And, after the departure of the former Peterborough United man, Curle revealed his frustration at being unable to secure deals for any of his three targets on deadline day.

“One of them has just got back in the team and thinks he’s got a future, the other one has got another offer to go to a League Two club that suits him more location-wise and the other one was a player from a club two divisions above us,” explained the Blues boss.

“He got pulled out of a bounce game because of the interest shown by ourselves and another club, and unfortunately nobody was able to get hold of him on his contact details, so that’s disappointing.

“We got permission to speak to the player and then we got a phone call back saying they couldn’t get hold of the player. We couldn’t get hold of the player – I was given his number, I left him a message.

“It’s one of those things, we move on. We’re happy with the squad that we’ve got, we’ve got decent strength in depth and we’re able to put out very competitive teams for all the competitions.