United media officer and first team kitman Andy Hall spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's James Phillips shortly before Carlisle's League One match at Tranmere, Hall first talking about the early morning fog down on the Wirral :
" You look at the pitch an hour ago, I walked onto the pitch, I deliberately took a wander down to the 18-yard box off to our right-hand side just so I could see whether I could see the far end of the pitch, and you couldn't. You couldn't see the corner flags at either side so at that point it was very, very worrying. Now it is almost like an early autumn day rather than a mid-winter day because the sun is out, they have got the floodlights on which has bathed the pitch even more, and the fog has disappeared.
" It is a very close tight ground and it is one that we have had difficulty on, we know that, we got battered here last season, it was one of our more disappointing performances. It is a very tough place to come to, the lads know that, the manager (Greg Abbott) knows that and hopefully we have prepared well for it. Having ironically had a training session on our own pitch just yesterday.
" The weather conditions for training have been frustrating but that is where the management team really have to kick in because they have to look at what type of cardio-vascular work they can do. They have got to look at what grass areas they can get onto and when they can, they have got to use them to their maximum. Because the key is keeping ready for the next game whenever that next game is and everybody obviously hopes that the next game will be the one on the calendar. If it is isn't you have got to make sure that you can pick up whenever it is that you do pick up.
" I even took myself out to watch the training session yesterday because we were talking beforehand with Greg and Dennis (Booth) about how are the lads going to react to this lay-off, what is it going to be like. I am sure you have had managers say in the past, if we played like we trained we would be top of the league. It was unbelievable yesterday, the lads were really up for it, it was all one-touch stuff as much as they could and it was slick. Now the key is, do they bring it into today?
" Tranmere are a totally different team aren't they to the one that we played when John Barnes and Jason McAteer brought them up to Brunton Park. On that day we didn't play particularly well if we are honest, if we had played to our potential that day who knows what the score would have been. As it was it as a comfortable victory, but it has changed, the personalities behind the scenes have changed and the players are bound to react to that as they have, and for them it has been a positive reaction. "
" The fans absolutely shouldn't read anything into Peter Murphy staying in the team ahead of Tom Taiwo. What Greg has done, he has looked at what he was doing within the league fixtures, how the team was playing within those league fixtures. And Peter Murphy became part of that because of the suspension to Tom Taiwo and because of the injury to Adam Clayton where he went down to Manchester City.
" That is all these players can do, we are looking at Adam Collin warming up now, he has grabbed his opportunity, he has kept his place inbetween the sticks. That is what happens, these lads are given the chance, they come in and it makes it very difficult for the manager to then drop them when they play well. You have got to look at Peter's versatility as well. What Peter has done is he has shown us yet again that you can bring him in into a position that you might not marry up with him naturally, but he will play it as if it is a natural position.
" All I can say on Taiwo, Clayton and Vincent Pericard is that the talks are ongoing. Every time we finish a training session the three lads are camped outside the manager's office, he waits to have another word with them. These things just aren't cut and dried, I know people just say - well why don't they just sign these contracts?
" There are all kinds of people involved when you are talking to a player that you also have to talk to to get the thing tied down. But the key thing for all them, and this doesn't mean that they will all sign by the way. But when you ask them that key question away from the manager - do you want to stay? It is an immediate in the eyes yes.
" Tom Taiwo will be available for the Everton match if selected next Saturday. It is also great news for Joe Anyinsah and Marc Bridge-Wilkinson to be on the substitutes bench today. Again, they took a full part yesterday in the training session and because of the fact that they have missed a little bit more than the other lads, if anything they look even hungrier. So when you get these injuries back, again it changes the whole dynamic of the team that you can pick. "