Carlisle United hoping for double injury boost for Gillingham trip

But the Blues boss says he wants a strong indication from the defender tomorrow morning before the long trip to Gillingham.

Huntington has trained after missing Tuesday’s Bradford City game with a slight abdominal tear.

Simpson – who also has Jack Ellis on the brink of a return – says experienced Huntington will travel if he has a chance of playing.

“At this moment I’ve told everybody who’s fit to come in ready to travel,” said Simpson.

“I don’t really like doing that because it’s not fair on people who have family commitments, but unfortunately I want to give us as long as possible.

“If Hunts doesn’t think he’s fit, he will not travel and then I’m not wasting anybody’s time.

“But if he has a chance of playing, ideally I want him to let me know Friday morning so we can do all our final bits and pieces of preparation.

“But I will give him as long as possible and we’ll wait and see. It may mean we have to take one extra than we normally will just to cover ourselves and make sure we’re right.”

Simpson said United would be “sensible” with their judgement on the influential Huntington, but also said it was a stage of the season when calculated risks on players’ fitness could be made.

“He’s done some straight line running on Wednesday and has been out on the grass and done some work today,” added the United boss.

“He was still feeling it on one type of exercise, so we just need to see what reaction he gets from that.

“We are at that point in the season where there’s no point thinking about 15-20 games down the line, because there isn’t that many left. We’re at the point where we may take risks with players.

“But I don’t want to take a risk with a player that puts him out for the next eight after it because we’ve been silly and rushed him back. We’ll be sensible about it and hope we make the right decision with Paul and Chris [Brunskill] the physio.”

Simpson says young defender Ellis could be involved this weekend after his return from a hamstring injury.

“We may have Jack back available – I’m going to give him another 48 hours to see how he reacts to the work we’ve done, because he’s done quite an intense session today,” he said.

“We’ll see how he is. Apart from that we’ll go with the 18 we had the other night.”

Simpson confirmed that Fin Back would hopefully return to Brunton Park next week to rejoin United’s promotion push.

The Nottingham Forest player had been due to play in an in-house game with his parent club on Tuesday, but Simpson said that had been postponed.

Fin Back (Image: Richard Parkes)

Another game tomorrow or Saturday is planned for Back to get some minutes into his legs – after which he should return to the Blues.

Asked if the 20-year-old could be fit for consideration for United’s trip to Leyton Orient on April 1, Simpson said: “I would like to think so – they [Forest] are telling me they will send him back when he’s fit to play.

“Then it’s a case of whether or not I make the decision for him to play. I want him in to have that option and I’m looking forward to seeing him back next week.”

Simpson says he will be delighted to have both Back and Ellis back to compete in the right wing-back position.

“It’s going to be huge,” he said. “At the moment we’ve seen Ben Barclay perform well there in a couple of games, Joel Senior coming back in…now we’ve got Fin and Jack Ellis coming back.

“It will be nice. We’ve had spells where we’ve struggled for right wing-backs, and now we could be inundated with them and having to leave some out of it.”

United’s other injured players are making progress, including Brennan Dickenson, who is stepping up his comeback from a cruciate lay-off.

“He’s doing really well,  has been out on the grass again, he’s done a lot of grass work and has been doing ball work as well,” added Simpson.

“He’s going for a week at St George’s Park to get some more intense one-to-one stuff next week, then we’ll assess how he is when he comes back.

“But the signs are really positive with him. Same with Taylor Charters, he’s out on the grass, running, looking like he’s getting up to a good speed.”