United boss Keith Curle was full of praise for his squad following the away win at Blundell Park as they showed again that they can deal with disappointment having had it confirmed that two of the big characters from their group will be facing operations this month.
Midfielders Nicky Adams and Jason Kennedy have been tagged as ‘big losses’ by the Carlisle gaffer, but he remains certain that both will be working hard to get back into the fold as quickly as possible as soon as they begin their rehabilitation programmes.
“We’ve had to deal with the disappointment of the news about Jason Kennedy and Nicky Adams because those lads are big losses for us,” Curle said. “The mentality of both players is that they’re seeing what they’re going through right now as a challenge.
“They want to be playing, that’s the top and bottom of it, so they’ll be looking forward to getting on with things as soon as they can. We know about Nicky and his cruciate ligament, and we know he’s been given an eight-month timescale as a target from the moment he has his operation at the end of November. He’ll work hard to achieve that because that’s the character he is.
“With Jason, he has been unbelievably frustrated. When we saw him come back at the end of last season and score his goal I think everybody thought that was him sorted. The professional that he is, he came back for pre-season and he just didn’t feel 100% right. He could do most things, but after games he found that he was struggling to recover.
“He’s seen various surgeons and sports medicine doctors who have all tried different things to help with that, but to no avail. It’s reached a point now where the best thing for Jason is for him to have an operation. This will be exploratory surgery and it will give the surgeon the best chance to see what’s going on. He’s scheduled for that in London next Friday.
“All our thoughts and wishes are with him, but we know he’ll be exactly the same as Nicky in that he’ll do everything he can to get back into this team.”
