Paul Simpson today gave an update on the injury and fitness situation of several Carlisle United players.
The Blues are expecting to be without Taylor Charters for a number of weeks, while Dylan McGeouch has suffered another setback.
In better news, Ben Barclay is back in full training while Corey Whelan is available after recovering from illness.
Joshua Kayode, meanwhile, is in the early stages of his comeback after undergoing successful shoulder surgery this week.
Here is what the Blues manager said about those players and more ahead of this weekend’s trip to Wycombe Wanderers:
TAYLOR CHARTERS
On midfielder Charters, who injured his hamstring in Tuesday’s Fred Conway Cumberland Cup tie at Carlisle City: “He’s presenting not as bad as we feared yesterday when he was examined.
“He’s had a scan at 12pm today, and hopefully we’ll get some results tonight.
“I’ll be honest, I’m not expecting him to be back in a couple of weeks, I think it’s going to be longer, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed that it’s not too bad.
“It’s the same leg [as a previous hamstring injury]. It’s a different site to where he had the surgery, it’s at the other end.
“I don’t know enough about hamstring injuries to know if you’ve had it at one end of the hamstring muscle it weakens the top end.
“But the disappointing thing is he’s not shown any signs of having any issues over recent weeks. We’ve made sure we’ve got the right level of work into him – even if he’s not been involved in games he’s exposed to high-speed running.
“We don’t know what’s caused it. Sometimes players are more susceptible to hamstrings than others. Unfortunately for Taylor it’s his third one, that’s a blow for him and us.”
DYLAN McGEOUCH
On midfielder McGeouch, who has a calf problem: “We don’t really know what’s gone on there. He told us he’d got a kick a couple of weeks ago in training, and it was a bit sore but he carried on and tried to train.
“It’s not healed as we thought it was going to.
“He tried to train last Thursday but it wasn’t quite right so we got him scanned and it’s come back with a 2C strain of the soleus muscle in his calf.
“That’s probably two to four weeks we’re looking at. We’ll just have to be patient with him. It’s frustrating – we’re fighting to get Dylan up to full speed.”
COREY WHELAN
On defender Whelan, who missed the midweek game with illness: “Corey’s available [for the weekend] – he’s trained today.
“He wanted to be involved on Tuesday, he tried to train, but he was feeling rough, then Tuesday morning he said he was getting worse so we kept him out of the way.
“He then recovered on Wednesday and trained today, he’s fine and back involved.”
BEN BARCLAY
On defender Barclay, who’s been out with a calf injury in recent weeks: “He’s back in full training, although he’s not available yet.
“On my board where I’ve got the list of injuries it was always Nottingham Forest Under-21s [the EFL Trophy game on Tuesday, October 10] we were looking at for his first game back.
“Unless we really need to push him, we’re probably looking at that game.
“I’m pleased with what I’m seeing of him, he’s training really well, we’ve just got to try and keep him going.”
JOSHUA KAYODE
On striker Kayode, who had an operation on Tuesday: “From what we’re told it went really well. He’s going into Rotherham to start the early stages of [his rehab].
“The first few weeks are more about just getting over the surgery and letting the scar heal a little bit.
“I would imagine he’ll be doing some light strength work around the area, just more about getting the nerves back connected and stuff like that.
“We’re not expecting JJ to be fit to play probably until middle to end of December if we’re going off the timescales we’ve been given.”
Simpson, meanwhile, said he expected Dan Butterworth and Alfie McCalmont to be fit for the weekend despite picking up knocks at Carlisle City.
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