Ben Barclay and Terry Ablade are set to return to consideration at Carlisle United after putting injury problems behind them.

Defender Barclay is back to full fitness after a knee issue, while Ablade has completed his first week of full training after a thigh lay-off.

The duo will bolster Paul Simpson’s options for the 18-game run-in as Carlisle battle for League One survival.

On Barclay, the Blues manager said: “He’s done all of the work to go pain free around the knee.

“Again, it's a bit of a chronic thing [that’s long term] that just flared up. It's now settled down.

“He's done all the work in the gym and has been out doing the straight-line running, and joined in full training [on Thursday].

“So we're hoping that that's it done. It was just an innocuous thing that caused it. And we just hope that he's through it now, and he's back to full fitness.”

Fulham loan striker Ablade has been out since November but the pacy 22-year-old is now on the brink of a return.

And Simpson believes the forward will be back in better shape than before.

“Terry has had a full week of training,” said Simpson.

“He gives us something different because of the sheer pace that he’s got.

“He’s worked incredibly hard. I think it’s probably fair to say in his rehab he’s worked harder than he’s done before, so I’m hoping he’s going to be fitter when he comes back in to it.

“What we were finding early on is he could sprint at an incredible pace but he couldn’t repeat it for a while afterwards. So now he’s got a good base level of fitness and hopefully we’ll see the benefit over the last 18 games.”

Simpson said there is still no timescale on Joshua Kayode’s return to action, as he works his way back from the calf issue that followed his shoulder lay-off.

News and Star: Joshua KayodeJoshua Kayode (Image: Ben Holmes)

“He’s pain free now and we’ve just got to go through the process of building him back up,” said Simpson, who hopes the striker will be back soon but said United must “tread carefully”.

Josh Emmanuel is also set to miss this weekend’s game against Bolton Wanderers as he recovers from a leg injury.

“He’s not far away,” added Simpson. “We’re having to put the reins on him a bit because he’s desperate to get back into full training.

“We’ve had too many situations in my time when we’ve got players back and then they break down. So we’ve changed our rehab work and, with the protocol [players] follow, they have to tick certain boxes before the next stage.

“Hopefully in the next week or ten days he’ll be back in full training.”

Another issue United have faced this week is on the training facilities front in the wake of Storms Isha and Jocelyn.

“It’s been a nightmare. It's been really tough,” said Simpson.

“The training pitch was flooded on Monday, so we had no grass to go on. And in fact, Gretna [whose artificial pitch United often use] wasn't in a fit state. We were told by Gretna that it wasn't safe to go up there.

“So we weren't able to get out on a pitch. We ended up using the Neil Sports Centre, and if we didn't have that we would have been in serious bother. Because it was blowing a gale everywhere and difficult to go out.

“On Tuesday we got out on grass on Gretna that was safe then. [Thursday] we've been up at Gretna. So we're able to do some full pitch work, which has been good.

“We'll see what [Friday] is like, but I'm not sure when we're going to be able to get back on to our training pitch. That's for sure.”

United’s training issues underline the need for progress in the club’s attempt to secure a modern new facility – one of the key priorities of the Blues’ owners.

Tom snr and Patty Piatak are heading back to Carlisle ahead of the Bolton game, and further talks with Cumberland Council over a potential site are expected soon.

“We’re still in that position where we're waiting to get to the next stage of discussions,” said Simpson.

“It’s something that hopefully we can get in the near future because I've said it from day one – this football club needs a proper training ground.

“I know we've had the worst storm conditions for a long, long time in this last week. And the truth is, even if we had a new training ground with an indoor dome in there, it would probably have got blown away anyway [this week]...

“So we'd still have had the same challenge. But I just think for this football club, we need it. And that's why everybody's working to try and get that.”

Repairs, meanwhile, have been carried out to United's fan zone which suffered some damage in the storms earlier this week.

"These were temporarily hired fixtures, with the risk taken on by the provider," chief executive Nigel Clibbens told a supporters' groups (CUSG) meeting.

"A couple of player banners around the ground had been pulled down in the wind but are being fixed," the club added.