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" I'm settling in quite well, it's been good, the lads have been great. Pre-season is never easy you know, it's never straightforward, it's been hard work but it has been good work. It has been fairly straightforward to settle in to be fair but it depends on the lads and like I say the lads here have been great. They are a chirpy bunch of lads and the banter is good so it always makes it easy, it's a bit like changing schools but it has been good.
" Why Carlisle? Well I think they have proved the last two seasons consistently that they can handle this division. They are looking like they want to get out of it playing the right way. I was impressed when I played against them last year, I thought that they should have gone up last year, they were just unlucky towards the end of the season. When I spoke to the manager (John Ward) and he told me his plans then it is the place that I wanted to be.
" At the time I had a couple of options but when I spoke to the manager this was where I wanted to be and where I wanted to be playing, and who I wanted to get out of the league with. I'm young, I'm ambitious and I want to be playing every week. It's no good being 25 and sitting on the bench somewhere. Getting out of the league is what I want to do and do it with Carlisle.
" Every player wants to be playing every week but at the end of the day you have got to earn your jersey and you have got to earn it training well and playing well. So it's up to me to put the hard work in and show the gaffer what I am capable of. Hopefully I can get the number one spot and keep it.
" Six weeks off in the summer isn't long in terms of the year because really that is the only time off you get, because we get no time off around Christmas and things. Ask any footballer though, I think that after a couple of weeks you start to feel a bit lost. Gone are the days of being just sat on a beach somewhere for six weeks and then coming back. "
" I think that it is fairly important to keep yourself busy over the summer because pre-season is hard. They are hard work and I think that if you don't do anything over the summer then you struggle when you get here. So you keep yourself busy and I think, especially with me coming to a new club, I am itching to get back, join in with the lads, meet new faces and that and prove my point.
" Everyone is raring to put a kit on and run out and play 45 minutes or 90 minutes, however long they get. If you ask the lads, I think that is the way they would like to do the pre-season run-in, is in games, so I think that everybody will be looking forward to tonight definitely.
" All the lads were really good and made us (he and Josh Gowling) feel welcome from the start. I spoke to Josh on the first day, obviously we were both new but I think that the lads integrated us really well straight away. At the start of the week I stayed in the same hotel as Josh and I was getting a lift in with him so I've had a few chats with him and he is a nice lad.
" You just want it to start now, you want the season to start, to be honest before you know it it will be and you will be in it thick and fast. Holidays are firmly over but it's something that we can look forward to and hopefully we can kick on from last season and get up to the Championship.
" Everything with me, touch wood, everything is fit, fine and healthy. The gaffer and the coaching staff and the physiotherapists are good with that, they say that if there are any signs of any niggles then it is better to nip it in the bud now and just have a day off training. It's better than, prevention rather than treatment sort of thing where you will be off for two weeks. All the lads have been great though, I think that all the lads look really fit, they are training really well, running hard and there have been no niggles and no pulls or anything, which is always a good sign.
" Obviously I have played against them (Carlisle) now for the last two years so up here the support is always good, and even the away support down in Crewe has been good. So I'm looking forward to it, I suppose that I have got a kind of tough act to follow in Keiren (Westwood) I suppose with the way that the fans viewed him. Hopefully though I can do just as well as he has done, if not better. "