Paul Simpson has been telling the Carlisle United fans what they can expect to happen in the upcoming January transfer window.
He told the club website: “I’m hoping there will be one or two new faces coming in, but the truth of it is that it all depends on finances.
“We’re in a situation where I don’t know what we’ve got at the moment. My role and Greg’s role is to give the directors a problem.
“We’ll go to them and tell them what we want and how much it will cost, then it’s up to them. If they say no we won’t stamp our feet, we’ll get on with it.
“I do believe that if we get everybody fit and go with the same group that we’ve got enough to maintain our position, or maybe even improve it.
“Obviously Duncan Idehen has gone back, and we don’t yet know what the situation will be with Fin Back, so there’s a possibility that we’ll look at defensive cover.
“We’ve got Ben Barclay who we hope will be fit for the Christmas programme once he gets the swelling out of his latest setback with the ankle. We’re hopeful he’ll be able to stay with us.
“It’s the left side that concerns me. We’re a little bit short on the left side. That’s an area we might look at.
“The challenge we’ve got is they’ve got to be better than Jon Mellish and Jack Armer, if they’re going to come in and be part of it. And neither of those two deserve to be left out of the side as it stands at the moment.”
Simpson says they have got lists of players who they are interested in, who they’ve spoken about through agents and clubs to see whether there’s an availability, and whether the club can afford them.
The problem Simpson has, and other managers in similar positions, is that nobody’s prepared to commit themselves and say yes, he can definitely go out on January 1 and it’s going to cost X.
He went on: “I suppose it’s fair to say I know what I want to bring in, I know what positions I want to cover. If I could bring two in and strengthen in two areas, then I would do.
“But there are a couple of areas which I think we need to strengthen and add something a little bit different to what we’ve got.
“That could change, because if a parent club decides they want to take one of the loan players back, there’s nothing I can do about that. They’ve got the window in January when they can do that.
“We have some young lads out on loan. We’re having discussions with the clubs as to whether they want to keep them, and to keep them playing football, or whether they’ll return to us.
“Decisions will be made I would imagine over the next few weeks. As it stands there’s not been any enquiries to take anybody else out, so I’d expect the other young players to be here come the start of January.”
