United media officer and first team kitman Andy Hall (AH) spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's James Phillips (JP) ahead of Carlisle's League One match at Swindon this afternoon, Hall first talking about the broken hand sustained by Blues goalkeeper Lenny Pidgeley in training at Cheltenham yesterday :
JP
Already drama in this game for your club?
AH
Yeah, Lenny (Pidgeley) yesterday, I was just about to call him a rather rude name during the training session. Because there was a yelp as he clashed with Richard Keogh, and when we had a look at his hand everybody just shut up because you could see the swelling coming straight away.
It has been confirmed that he has broken a bone, the metacarpal in his hand and he could be out for anything from four to six weeks. We get confirmation on that from the surgeon next week, we will see what course of action they have to take. It will probably be a cast but we will have to wait and see with Lenny.
JP
It has been cast up of course, and you can see immediately that he has already talked about the fact that it was a pain for a night's sleep in there for him. Do you know how long the cast is expected to be on before he can get it out and the club can start assessing the situation then?
AH
Hopefully that will be a couple of weeks, because, I say it is only a metacarpal injury, it is killing the lad at the moment isn't it, he has told us that this morning. But hopefully in a couple of weeks time we will get that out and he will be able to start doing some rehabilitation work on the hand itself, and we will get him back ready for Wembley hopefully.
JP
I remember Ian Harte playing in a cast for Carlisle quite early in his first spell with the club, that early spell before he signed a longer term deal. Not the case of course for goalkeepers?
AH
No, so it was a bit of a panic last night for us, we had to ring young Mark Gillespie, luckily he was still in Carlisle. He was ready to go home to Newcastle because the youth team didn't have a game, we caught him there, got him to go down to the club, he got his own kit together bless him. Then he had to wait for one of the directors to bring him down today, got here in the nick of time so we have got our keeper on the bench.
JP
What an experience this is going to be for everyone involved with the club today. This is a game that going into it you look at the statistics for Swindon and they are quite scary. It is a game that the bookies I am sure would firmly back the home side but they seem to be the games when Carlisle pull one out of the hat?
AH
And the pitch itself as well is worth a mention, one of the best we have seen, and that includes Goodison Park so far this season. It is flat, it is lovely grass on there, it is a pitch for playing football and I think that is why they are doing so well. Greg (Abbott) doesn't normally mention player's names during the team talk, he has today, he has pointed out (Danny) Ward and (Jon-Paul) McGovern who play on the flanks.
He has pointed out (Billy) Paynter and (Charlie) Austin, the obvious ones. But the lad who works behind them that he is particularly worried about is (Jonathon) Douglas. We have seen him before a number of times up at Brunton Park, where we have played him before in the teams he has been with.
If we give him space and time on the ball then we will be hurt. So what he has done today is he has gone for (Paul) Thirlwell to sit behind the two lads in midfield, (Graham) Kavanagh and (Adam) Clayton. Hopefully he will close that door a little bit and get forward when we have got the ball, because we are not here for a draw, we are here to win this one.
JP
The fans would immediately say it was 4-5-1 but I can see with (Ben) Marshall on the right hand side, he is very much an attacking option and Matty Robson gives you a bit of both. I expect those to push up onto the main man (Joe Anyinsah) but you can almost see Clayton and Thirlwell pushing back a bit and it is almost Marshall, Kavanagh and Robson pushing up onto your main striker today?
AH
Almost bang on with the way it went on in training. Ben Marshall, it is a big day for the lad, it his is full debut for the club. He doesn't do a lot of defending, from what we have seen he is very, very attack-minded.
So he has been told to do that, when you have got the ball go for it but just temper it a little bit because there is a bit of a job to do. We have mentioned those lads on the flanks, McGovern and Ward, they do swap a little bit Swindon Town, swap sides, so he is going to have to watch them.
JP
Darryl Duffy out of the team today, a purely tactical decision because he has not let anyone down yet at the club has he?
AH
Completely tactical decision, again Greg will pick his team on what he thinks is going to get the points and where the game happens to be that we are playing.
JP
And everyone who is in and everyone who is out happy with how things have gone today looking at the team that has been out there to set up against Swindon? Nobody saying that they should have been in?
AH
Absolutely, they are going to aren't they and you would want it. When Greg had a word with the lads at the Cheltenham training ground yesterday he named the team ahead of the training session. Again it was something that he doesn't normally do, I think he is looking for a massive reaction to the disappointment of Tuesday night.
Which is why he did that, he wanted them to know who was playing, he wanted to see the reaction. He stood back and got a great reaction from that, but afterwards he had to pull a couple of them aside and just explain why he has done and what he has done.
There is nothing different to what happens at any other club, and they all accepted it. I think you might have seen at the hotel yourself last night the team spirit is fantastic. We have got to keep that and that comes down to the way you manage the players when you pick them or rest them.