Carlisle United's Josh Emmanuel ruled out with injury

The defender has suffered a small tear to tendons in his leg and missed the 3-1 setback at Brunton Park.

Manager Paul Simpson said it is not a serious injury but the Blues looks set to be without the former Ipswich Town man for their forthcoming games.

“I think it's the tendons at the back of his knee which connect the hamstring,” said Simpson of the problem Emmanuel suffered in the previous weekend’s defeat at Exeter City.

“He’s got a really small tear, I think it was classed as a 2C in the tendon, which isn't too bad.

“We were told two to three weeks, so we’re one week [into that period] now.

Emmanuel suffered the injury at Exeter (Image: Barbara Abbott)

“We're hoping that he'll be able to be out on the grass this [coming] week to do some running if it's all settled down.”

In Emmanuel’s place, Jack Ellis came in for only his second start of the league season on the right of the United team.

Simpson felt the young Cumbrian gave a capable performance despite Carlisle’s defeat.

• Carlisle United 1-3 Oxford United - as it happened

United’s boss hopes another right-sided defender Fin Back will soon be back in the mix.

The Nottingham Forest loanee has been out since October with a quad muscle injury.

Simpson said he hopes the 21-year-old could be back at a similar time to Emmanuel.

“Fin’s come into us and he's been back on the grass for seven weeks. But unfortunately because of the last two weeks, he just hasn't done enough work to get him up to a level where we think that he’s safe to put into it.

Simpson hopes Fin Back will return in the coming weeks (Image: Richard Parkes)

“So we're just going have to wait and see on Fin as well. But I do think Jack Ellis did okay [against Oxford] – I was quite happy with Jack considering it was his first game for a while.”

Simpson said Ben Barclay was continuing to be assessed after a knee injury again kept the defender out of action.

“That hasn't settled as quickly as we hoped. So we're just going to have to see how he is on Monday morning, whether or not he's able to go out on the grass without any discomfort,” said Simpson.

Striker Joshua Kayode is still not ready to return but United’s manager hopes that will change soon.

Other players not in the squad to face Oxford, such as Dylan McGeouch and Paul Huntington, are fully fit and trained on Saturday morning.

But Carlisle are still without other injured players such as Terry Ablade, Jokull Andresson and Callum Guy, the latter out for the season.

“We’ve got some testing little situations, but we've just got to dig in and get through it,” said Simpson, whose side goes to Barnsley on Tuesday.