Carlisle United team news for Charlton Athletic trip

The Blues boss will assess certain players on Friday before deciding whether they are able to travel with the squad.

Simpson did not name the players concerned but said the minor issues had arisen from last weekend’s defeat to Reading.

“There's only a couple of little bumps and bruises that we got from last weekend that we're just waiting to see how they are for the weekend,” the United boss said today.

“We’re training on Friday, so we'll make calls when we see if everybody's fit to train.

“And if they're not fit to train they won't travel with us – we won't take any risks, and there’s no point taking players down there if they're going to just sit and watch.

“So we'll just give it as long as we possibly can and go from there.”

Josh Emmanuel and Ben Barclay are back in contention having made comeback appearances on Tuesday night against Whitehaven Miners Social in the Fred Conway Cumberland Cup semi-final.

Sean Maguire was substituted in the second half as a precaution, Simpson added.

Josh Emmanuel (back row, third right) made his comeback in midweek (Image: Barbara Abbott)

On Emmanuel’s return after two months out, Simpson said: “It was really important because we needed to get him to do sort of 75 per cent of what his match load is normally.

“And he'd done that in the first 45 minutes. So we were really pleased in the way that he pushed himself to go on underlapping and overlapping runs from his right sided centre-back position, which is why we played him there, so he could go and really extend himself.

“So it was good for everybody to get the game – the lads who did 90 minutes, it was good for them to get that under their belts.

“We had Ben Barclay who did the physical load in he needed.

“Sean Maguire had a bit of tightness in his glutes, so that's why we took him off, we’re not prepared to take any risks.

“But everybody's fine – everybody from that game has trained today.”

Simpson, meanwhile, gave an update on the return to fitness of strikers Georgie Kelly and Joshua Kayode.

• United backed by sell-out support at Charlton

“Georgie Kelly has had a few days out on the grass with us this week,” said Simpson.

“So that's good to see him out there. And all seems to be going well, albeit slowly. So we're just going to take our time and make sure he gets right.

“Hopefully we should get him back over the next few weeks.”

With Kayode, added the United boss: “The plan was always that he was going to do his first running session on the grass at Rotherham today.

“If he gets no reaction he's going to run again on Saturday.

“I haven't yet heard whether he's done that or not, so I'm still waiting to hear on JJ, but everything has been positive this week, with a view to him running today.”