Absent from the midweek friendly at Kendal were first-team squad members Taylor Charters, Sam Fishburn and Omari Patrick, with manager Paul Simpson confirming at his Friday afternoon press conference that all three have a period of treatment ahead to overcome their respective injuries.
“We’ve got a couple of injuries which are a little bit of a pain,” he commented. “Just to properly nip this ridiculous rumour about Omari in the bud, I’ve got no idea where that has come from.
“Unless the person who started the rumour has a crystal ball and can see something that we all can’t, it’s totally untrue.
“Omari pulled out of training on Monday and he was scanned on Tuesday which showed that he has some bruising to the pubic bone and a little bit of a strain on his adductor muscle.
“We think it’s probably going to be a couple of weeks so he’ll hopefully be fit for the start of the season, depending on how that settles down.
“He’s already feeling better after a couple of days and it’s nothing to do with him leaving the club.
“Unfortunately the timing of the rumour about him came out at the same time he missed a game. Everybody puts two and two together and comes up with not just five but about 15. Thankfully it’s not too bad, if everything goes to plan we’ll get him fit for the start of the season.”
“Fish has got a bit of swelling on his knee which has kept him out of training for a week or ten days,” he added. “We’re hoping he’ll return to training next week. Both of those are from the hard grounds and pounding and him getting used to that.
“And we’ve had a bit of a setback with Taylor Charters. He’s got another hamstring strain on the same hamstring, but in a different area to last time.
“We probably need to have a look at how we’ve handled that as a group of staff. I don’t think we’ve done particularly well for Taylor.
“He’s probably going to be out for six weeks from the date of the injury so he’s maybe got another four to five weeks from now. He’s doing ok and doing the work.
“We’ve got to build him back up, we’ve taken our eye off the ball a little bit because he’s come from Gateshead, where he wasn’t training all of the time. He picked up a hamstring injury towards the end of his time there then did his rehab over the summer.
“He was at a point where he thought it was right and ok, but with hindsight, which is always easy, we probably should have taken him out of some of the earlier training sessions and not pushed him like we did.
“He was so enthusiastic and up for it that it’s just one of those things. Hopefully we’ll get him right in a few weeks.
“Those injuries mean we’ve got Ryan Carr, Kai Nugent and Nic Bollado in with us and they’re all really doing well, which is great experience for them.
“Whether or not League Two will be a bit too much for them at this point remains to be seen, but ideally I’d like a couple more in to strengthen the squad rather than anybody going out.”
Expanding on the rumours that sprung from nowhere about Patrick earlier in the week, which caused high levels of anxiety amongst the fans, he issued a plea to supporters for calm when faced with information that doesn’t always come from official sources.
“I don’t know where it comes from,” he said. “I understand the way these message boards work. Any Tom, Dick or Harry can put whatever they want on, and suddenly it becomes the truth.
“I’m getting told people are saying they want their money back on their season tickets because there’s a ridiculous rumour. I don’t know where they come from, I really don’t.
“We’ve got issues, we’ve got people who are posting things on message boards, sometimes they are true, I don’t know where they get that information from, there’s also people posting stuff which ... this person who put it on might have a crystal ball and seen it’s going to happen, but there is absolutely no truth in that rumour as far as I know.
“Unfortunately people listen to it, believe it’s gospel. A lot of times it’s not. People do want reassurance when things come but if we try and talk about every rumour, it’s going to be 24-7 that we’re dealing with it.
“We can’t do that. I can assure people if there’s anything to be told, I’ll tell you. I don’t believe in keeping secrets, you’re going to find out at some point. If there is anything to be told, we tell you when it’s right.”
“Just like we have opportunities where we’re trying to bring players in and we have somebody who’s busy as hell who goes and posts things on social media message boards before it’s actually confirmed,” he continued.
“That could actually scupper a deal. If somebody has spouted off that a player’s about to sign for us and another club hears about it, they could step in and nick them from under our toes, and I’d be raging about it.
“Unfortunately when you have somebody who thinks they’re smart because they’ve heard a snippet from somebody in the club, and they post it on a message board, they think they’ve got some power.
“But they’re not doing anything to the benefit of the football club. All I could say is just keep your mouth shut or your fingers to yourself rather than typing on message boards, and wait until something official is going to be announced, then everybody will know about it.”
And having experienced it before where a deal has been affected by the leaking of information, he told us: “I’ve lost players because of it. It happens. What tends to go on, we’ll make an offer for a player, talking to an agent or player, and because of the way the season is, the timing of the season, I know the agent will go and say look, we’ve got this from Carlisle, can you give us anything better, and they tout it around.
“Sometimes, I’ve heard it before, I’ll see on a message board, the rumours is a player is going to such and such a place, and you put a call into the agent to ask is there any truth in this. He’ll go yeah, he’s had an offer, so we’ll step in as well.
“You can lose players over loose lips and fingers on keyboards. I know it’s the way of the world, I totally get it, I just think if we all want to work together let’s just be a little bit careful.
“I’ve spoken to the players about it. I’ve said we need to be careful - somebody, unconsciously, not on purpose, is obviously speaking to somebody else who goes on a message board and puts it out there.
“Let’s keep it to yourself, keep it under your hat. When I came in last season there were rumours the team was being leaked before team sheets were going in. You just can’t have that.
“I’m not saying it guarantees you success but we’ve got to have a togetherness about us that we’re not letting rumours out, Chinese whispers. It can affect what we want to do. We’ve just got to hope it doesn’t.”
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