Paul Simpson says Carlisle United are casting a fresh eye on the free agent market after a pre-season initiative by the Professional Footballers’ Association.

A number of out-of-contract players have spent part of the summer at a training camp laid on by the players’ union.

The residential camp is designed to replicate a club pre-season so that free agents are in the best possible shape to join new clubs.

United boss Simpson says he is looking at some of those players as well as his permanent and loan transfer targets.

“In the ideal scenario I want permanents – I've said that from the start of the recruiting,” Simpson stressed.

“The loans that we would want to bring in tend to only come available at this point now. That’s because the younger players, or even the older players, only get told [of their availability] at this point, or they can see themselves that they're not going to be in their first team and they want to get out and play.

“We're looking at that. We're even looking at the players who are still freedom of contract players.

“There are players who have been involved in the PFA training camps.

“The challenge when you're getting players who are out of contract is what sort of work they're doing.

“I think the PFA have done a really good thing this summer where they've had something like an eight-week camp for players to go and train and to basically be involved like they would be in a club.

“Then they’ve played a couple of games, so we expect that they're coming at a decent level if you're going to do it.

“We’re looking at every avenue we possibly can and we'll try and get the right people in.”

The PFA pre-season group has played friendlies in recent weeks.

Their 18-man squad to take on Stratford Town in a friendly included players such as ex-Brentford and Walsall attacker Romaine Sawyers, former Burton Albion and Exeter City full-back Jake Caprice, ex-Newcastle United defender Ciaran Clark, former Walsall and Portsmouth wide man Milan Lalkovic and former Sheffield Wednesday midfielder Kadeem Harris.

A PFA XI also faced Manchester United’s Under-21s recently, with ex-Doncaster Rovers and Lincoln City winger Hakeeb Adelakun among those involved, as well as former Manchester United man Ravel Morrison, ex-Shrewsbury Town and Millwall attacker Aiden O’Brien, ex-Portsmouth and Sheffield United defender Kieron Freeman, and former West Ham United midfielder Keenan Appiah-Forson.

Former Carlisle captain Paul Huntington was also involved in the latter game, while ex-Blues forward Sean Maguire also spent time on the PFA camp before securing a move to Cork City.

Simpson is keen to add two new faces to his squad before the transfer window closes, and is hoping to bring in a player to bolster his injury-hit midfield before the weekend.

He says there is still money to spend.

“The budget was set at the start and there's still finances available in that,” he said. “We're in a position where we can do something.

“We're really pleased with the recruiting we've done at the moment, with the permanents and the loans.

“It's whatever feels right. We've got to try and get the right people into the club.”