Carlisle United Football Club

"We're hoping to have Troy [Archibald-Henville] ready for next Saturday. We all know Troy has problems with his knees and the hard grounds throughout the course of pre-season didn't help him, so he's been impacting quite a lot. 

"Although we haven't trained him every day he's still managed to get some stress in his shin. We don't want to push him too much, too fast, otherwise we'll lose him for a period of time. We worked him on Tuesday, he had a little reaction on Wednesday and we'll assess him again today. It's an ongoing process and Dolly is pretty happy with where he is at the moment. The weather is starting to change and the grounds are starting to soften up so that will help him." 

"Stephen Elliott went to see the specialist on Tuesday," he added. "That had been planned for a while and it went well. He had a knee injury which almost ended his career so he wanted to go and make sure that everything was still ok after he'd played a couple of times. 

"He had his operation last year but he's had one or two little niggles in the back of his knee. We knew that would be the case so we've tried to ease him back in. For his peace of mind he wanted the surgeon to confirm that everything was still good in there and he's been given a clean bill of health."

"Mark Beck [ear] has been told that he has to wait until 6 September before he can have any contact," he told us. "Matt Robson [knee ligament] will be eight weeks, but he's improving all the time. Alex Marrow [calf] is slowly improving but he will be another four or five weeks before he's back in training. 

"David Amoo [ankle] is back to full fitness and Danny Kearns has recovered from the illness he had, so they will both be in contention for the Cambridge game."

"We all know about the situation we ended up in last season because of injuries, in terms of loans, so it was important that we brought players in over the summer who could adapt to different positions," he said. "I think we're at that point now because we're down to the bare bones. 

"We've had Matty Douglas in the squad for the past couple of games and I think we had six players under the age of 21 on the pitch at the end of the game last week. They're all doing their best while they're learning, so it is important that we stick with them and be patient with them.

"The transfer window closes on Monday and we would like to sign more players. There's nothing in the pipeline at the moment because it's a difficult period to get players in. The majority of those you like have already got themselves a club. We've done most of our business already, just like most of the other clubs in our situation, but we are still looking and there are one or two of interest.

"We've got injuries at the moment so it's difficult to judge how many players we need. You probably carry two or three injuries in the squad every week but we are down to the bare bones now. You have to include Matty Douglas for us to have the full 18, which isn't ideal. There's no point crying about it, it is what it is, and we've got to get on with it. The most important thing at the moment is that we get performances and we start getting results."

On players going out the other way, he said: "We've had one enquiry about Mark Beck. Cowdenbeath have asked about taking him on loan but he wasn't interested in going, which is fine. We haven't had any other interest, which I'm very comfortable with."