Carlisle United Football Club

“We’ve got a decent squad but we still need to add to it,” he said. “We’ve come a long way over the course of the last year and the challenge to the players is for them to stay in the team once they get in it. 

“The way I do things is that once you’re challenged as an individual you either step up or step aside. A day doesn’t go by where we aren’t exploring opportunities to improve this club. That’s both with the work done to make the players who are already better, or by adding to the group externally.” 

“We know there’s money available to do business but I’m not in the habit of wasting it,” he continued. “We’re still talking to parent clubs about two players I think will add to the current squad. We haven’t got to the stage of talking personal terms with either of them yet. 

“It’s still to be decided by the clubs as to whether or not they want their players to go out on loan in the first place. We’re going for players who are highly thought of in higher divisions but sometimes you have to wait for their clubs to do their business. We’ll keep going with that and we’ll see where it takes us.”

And on his interest in Bradford midfielder Gary Liddle, he said: “I had a conversation with his agent and he’s been told by his manager that he still has a part to play with them. 

“That’s fine, we respect that, because he is their player. If the situation was to change we could possibly revisit it but we are very much in the hands of parent clubs when we’re talking about bringing players into our football club.”