Carlisle United today suffered a last-minute blow in their bid to bring in a fourth summer signing, Paul Simpson has revealed.
The Blues were poised to clinch the signing of the unnamed player, who had been at Brunton Park this morning.
But after the player underwent a medical, the deal was dashed when a rival club made a last-ditch move for him.
Simpson admitted it had been a frustrating situation in his attempt to further bolster his squad with a month to go until the new League One season.
“We felt as though we had a really good signing coming in today,” Simpson said.
“He’d been in at 8:15am, had his medical, got his kit on, got his squad number – and then he comes and knocks on my door and said he's had a phone call from his agent and he's got a better offer from a club closer to home, so he was going to take it.
“We hadn't got the contract signed – we were waiting for it to be okayed by his agent’s solicitor. And then we lose him. And so that's really frustrating because there's a lot of work gone on.”
Simpson went on to say that he had not anticipated location being a problem with the potential signing, adding: “He was going to stay up here when he needed to without relocating his family.
“[But] it does make a difference when you get an offer which is a lot closer to home and you don’t have to make the journey up here.
“It’s an issue but we’ll deal with it, we can’t change where Carlisle is and it’s a lovely place to be. It’s a good football club to be involved in and we’ll just keep working to get the bodies in we want.”
Simpson said United simply now had to move on from the disappointment and continue their efforts to add players to their squad.
“It was a blow but it’s not the end of the world,” he said.
“I’ve got no problem with the player doing I because he’s got to do what’s right for him and his family, and it happens.
“Fair play, he didn't just dump his kit in the in the skip and disappear - he came and explained it.
“It’s still disappointing when it happens to us when we’ve put a lot of work into it. Myself and Greg [Abbott, head of recruitment] had numerous calls and texts over the weekend and we were at the point where we thought it was done.
“We had him down for training numbers on Monday, so it disrupted us a little bit.
“I understand the fans’ frustrations as well as the players’ frustrations. These players have got us to another level and they’re wanting new faces to come in and give them a lift. It’s bloody hard, but we’ll keep working away and hopefully we’ll be able to get players in who can help us.”
Simpson said United were working on “a couple of other things” in terms of new faces. He has so far made three summer additions in the permanent deals for ex-loanees Jack Robinson, Alfie McCalmont and Ben Barclay.
“I think we had we had maybe three or four [plates] spinning at the end of last week and then we thought we'd got one sorted today, but these things happen and as disappointing as they are we just have to get on with it," the Blues boss said.
"We've got things that are going on but I can't really say how close they are, because [today's] was really close and it hasn't happened.
"It could take 24 hours, it could take a month - we're just going to keep going and every one of us in the club are doing everything we can to try and keep improving it."
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