The late Monday morning blip in securing a loan keeper ahead of the start of the new season served as another reminder of just how tricky and unpredictable the transfer window can be, with manager Paul Simpson confirming this week that it can be a frustrating market to deal with.
“It's been tough, yeah, it’s been really tough,” he said. “I think it's always tough at Carlisle United, if I’m going to be honest with you.
“This season has been even tougher because we're looking to bring in the next level of player, and the next level of player means a next level of finances.
“Although the board have been absolutely fantastic in in finding extra budget for us, it's been really difficult and we've lost out with a few.
“We had the guy who came in and went away after having his medical. That was literally a case of somebody offering him, I don't even know exactly, but quite a lot more money than we were offering him.
“And you have to respect that. It's the lad’s family that he's got to look after, so that one was lost. And the numbers that they're talking about are scary. They're frightening.
“The numbers that they’re talking at this level. going off last season, there's a real gulf. Last season there were clubs who were at about 12 million budget. There was a group of them round 6-9 million, and there was a smaller group anywhere between 1.9 and 2.5 million.”
“It really is tough when you're trying to compete with teams,” he added. “We're all looking at the same level of players, but if they're offering double X and we can only offer X, and sometimes it's treble X they're offering, we can't compete.
“Sometimes we have to just accept that there's not a lot we can do. We have to sort of appeal to the players that this is the right place to come and they're going to get match minutes.
“We’ve done that and thankfully, I'm really pleased with what we have got. I'm delighted with the signings that we've got. We've just got to keep banging away and keep trying to do things properly, and hopefully we can keep improving.
“With Sean Maguire and Luke Plange adding to the forward options, we’re hoping that will help in that area.
“We've lost a good few forward players from last year with Kristian Dennis leaving, with Omari choosing to leave, with JK Gordon going back. They had different attributes, a spark about them, particularly JK and Denno.
“We knew we were going to have to find that again. We have to have players here who can actually score goals. We need to get goals into our team, and hopefully these new faces will.”
On the possibility of loaning some of the younger members of our group the other way, he said: “We might do that.
“I mean, there's been enquiries for a couple of them so far, but nothing definite. And I also wanted to keep the whole group together for pre-season just so we could have a real good look at them.
“We’ll see what this week brings. If we feel as though there's anybody who we can afford to let go, I don't mean afford financially, but afford to let them go so that we don't leave ourselves short then I'll certainly consider that.
“But it will be a case of letting them go for their development, not to just get them out of the building.”