MANAGER: A knock on the door policy

“I’m pleased for the lad that he has been able to put the situation completely to bed in the right way,” he said. “Everyone connected with him is happy things have been sorted correctly and he fully appreciates the value we put on him. 

“The intention has always been to keep Kyle and his progression here at Carlisle. He’s had attention from teams in higher divisions and he will have had lots of people whispering in his ear about what would be the best thing for him to do. People do sometimes listen to that advice and they then go for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. 

“Unfortunately the reality is they join these bigger clubs and they don’t continue their progression. It’s very difficult to do that if you’re not playing competitive league football every weekend. 

“We’ve been able to offer him that and it’s been a big factor in our negotiations. He knows he’s by no means the finished article but, with us, he’ll be able to work hard all week then go out to put it into practice on a Saturday.”

Speaking about his decision to leave Brad Potts out of the starting line up last weekend, he said: “We have a knock on the door policy here and Brad came to see me to ask why he wasn’t involved from the start last week. That’s exactly what I wanted him to do because that’s how people learn. 

“I explained the reasoning behind my decision - and I wouldn’t say he accepted it. He’s obviously disappointed, but he knows there are things he needs to work on to become a regular starter again. That’s no different to everyone else. If people don’t make the starting eleven, or the eighteen, they are well within their rights to come and ask for the reason why that’s the case.”

And on the injury picked up by Dave Symington during the Workington game, he said: “I’m absolutely gutted for the lad. 

“He’s gone through a period of getting himself in great shape and it looks like he’s dislocated a knee, ruptured a tendon and done some cartilage damage in there as well. It could potentially rule him out until past the end of the season. 

“He’s been chomping at the bit to get an opportunity and he was prepared to drop down a few levels to get that. It’s a huge shame that this happened. Our duty of care now will be to get him fit and able and ready to play again. 

“That would obviously extend beyond the end of the season, if needs be, and hopefully we’ll get him up to speed and to a position where he is ready to earn himself a contract playing football.”

“Mark [Gillespie] has been over to Ireland for a biomechanical analysis of his injury,” he continued. “He’s seen some specialists over there to see if they can advise us on anything else that can be done, particularly to prevent further injury.  

“Other than those two, and the other long term problem with Stephen Elliott, we have a full complement of players to choose from. Billy Paynter and Gary Dicker are both back and involved in the football side of things and they will continue their work from here.”