24-year-old Bournemouth defender Josh Gowling has signed a two-year deal with United this morning, making him a Carlisle United player until the summer of 2010.

Gowling, available on a Bosman, made 43 appearances in all competitions for the Cherries last season, and has made 94 appearances in total for the south-coast club since signing for them in the summer of 2005.

The tall Coventry-born defender started out as a youngster with West Browmwich Albion, and made the switch from the Hawthorns to Denmark, to sign for Herfolge BK, in 2004. After playing 8 games for the Danish outfit, he picked up a trial with Bournemouth and signed a permanent deal following some excellent displays in their pre-season friendlies.

John Ward said: "Josh has been playing in the centre of the defence for Bournemouth, and he has been playing consistently well for them. He has the flexibility to be able to play at full back, if we need it, and that's good for us to have in the squad."

"Everyone knows that we've been looking at that position for a while," he confirmed, "and we brought Paul Reid in to the club, and Richard Keogh, because we felt that we needed a little bit of cover. That is not a slight on either Danny Livesey or Peter Murphy in any way but, as we saw when Danny was suspended, we then had to bring in a young player to cover what is a key position. I would prefer to leave David Raven at right back, because of the way that he has perfromed in that position, so I think that this signing gives us some really strong competition, which is also very important."

"He is a very good player who is only going to get better," he added. "The building process for next season is constantly ongoing and, as you know, I'm talking to more players today. Having spoken to Josh I got the feeling, almost immediately, that he wants to come up here and compete. He knows that it will be tough for him to break in to the side but, by signing him, we're making our squad that much stronger. That's good for me, it's good for the football club, and it should be very pleasing for the supporters as well." 

Or SMS subscribers got this news first. To subscribe to SMS text alerts, click HERE.