Paul Simpson says he will scour the free agent market after bad news on Taylor Charters’ injury.

The Carlisle United player is set to be out for up to two months with a hamstring tear.

It further depletes the Blues’ midfield numbers – and manager Simpson is concerned about a lack of depth in the position.

“It’s a 2C tear of his hamstring. I think I’m right in saying [he’ll be out] six to eight weeks,” said the United boss on Maryport favourite Charters.

“Because it’s on the same hamstring [that he has injured before], although in a different area, we’ve just got to be careful and conservative there.

“It’s a blow, a real blow for us. With him being out and Dylan [McGeouch] not being available as well, we are a little bit short on numbers.

“We’re going to have to have a look around and see if there’s any free agents who are fit and ready to come in and who can come and make an impact straight away.

“Firstly we’ve got to see if there’s anybody out there, and then see if the board will let me go and do it – I think we are slightly over the budget at the moment. Only slightly.”

Simpson said he has already discussed the situation with head of recruitment Greg Abbott.

“We’ve had those conversations,” he said.

“We’re very wary about taking free agents in at this stage because of the levels they’ll be at in terms of fitness, and you run the risk of them getting injured, which we can’t afford.

“We’ve just got to wait and see. It’s difficult to know what’s the right thing to do but if there was somebody out there who we thought could come and help us, we’ll be trying to do it.

“We need to, we have to improve. I’m not deluded enough to think the whole garden is rosy because it’s not. We’ve just got to keep working to be better.”

Charters injured his hamstring in last week's Fred Conway Cumberland Cup tie at Carlisle City, while McGeouch's calf injury sees the ex-Celtic man out for two to four weeks.

In the meantime, Simpson is urging his available players to respond in the right way at home to Peterborough United tomorrow night, following Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Wycombe Wanderers.

“This is what we’ve got, we’ve got to work with them, and hope they show the desire they did for long periods of the second half to go and affect Tuesday night properly,” he added.