United chief executive David Allen spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's James Phillips on Tuesday evening about Carlisle's efforts to avoid relegation, Allen also later talking about the drop in attendances at Brunton Park this season affecting the finances at the club :
" It is a very, very difficult time for us, we are fighting now and we are just doing everything that we can to stay up. I think the fans realise that we are doing what we can, we have brought in Ian Harte and Ian Morris late in the day to boost our squad, we are doing everything that we can, we have done everything possible to help Greg Abbott this season.
" I understand that we are in talks with Grant Smith now and Grant knows that he has to go. There are players that they know need to go and we need to strengthen the squad, we do. We have been very unlucky this season with the injuries but we can't blame everything on the injuries, we have got to strengthen the team. We have got a lot of good players already, I mean there are a lot of good players injured who haven't given their best this last year because of the injuries. If we get them fighting fit then we are a long way there.
" Obviously the biggest thing is that it is very, very difficult times, so apart from our results on the pitch and the disappointment there, we are in a recession. So obviously apart from our gates being down because of the performance on the pitch our gates are considerably down because of that, so that does have an impact on the finances. What will happen though is that the playing squad will have to be cut.
" I am not convinced that the gates would go down just purely because we go down into League Two. Statistics show that people want to see a winning team so people might want to come and support them even more to see us get back up, because we would be fighting to get back up if the worst came to the worst.
" I do think that we would have to give him (Greg Abbott) a chance if we went down. We do think that Greg has done a good job, he has taken a lot of criticism because of course all the decisions are not perfect. Overall though he has done a good job in the circumstances, he has got a squad that wasn't his to start with and no doubt he will make some changes there. I think that we would need to be fighting to get back up straight away, there is no doubt about that, infact we are not looking at going down at the moment, we are looking at doing everything we can to stay up. "
" We are just rallying all the fans that we can to get behind Greg and get behind the squad. The fans are the 12th player so we just want as many people down there as we can get down on Friday, and let's get behind Greg and cheer them on. The players do want to do well, there are one or two of them, they are very, very disappointed by their own performance and by the results, but just a good cheer would just get their heads back up and get them going.
" What we are doing for the fans, as far as ticket prices go, we have frozen the ticket prices for next season, I think that most people know that we have frozen the ticket prices. In addition to that there are early buy prices, people buying before the 12th of June get a discount. If you buy even earlier before the 30th of April then you get an even bigger discount.
" In addition to that the next 100 people who buy season tickets will get a free goalkeepers jersey. Then in addition to that, what we have found, because of having our open training session when fans could come and see the players train and meet them, and on Sunday the 15th of March where the players were up at the racecourse mixing with fans up there.
" A lot of feedback from the fans is that they want to meet players, so anybody buying a season ticket can meet the players tomorrow between 12.30pm and 2.30pm at the club. Anybody who can't make it tomorrow, a week on Thursday at the club at the same time the players will be available to meet fans and fans will be able to have their photographs taken. That is for fans who have purchased a season ticket. We have timed it to coincide with the Easter holidays so any kids that are off school and can get down can come twice if they can make it.
" The recession is a very, very big concern, we need to do be doing everything we can as a club to get fans down there and make it as easy as possible. Bearing in mind that our average gates are now down to 6,100 for this season compared to just over 7,800 last season, so you don't need to be an accountant to do those maths, it does make a big difference to the club. We just want to ask all the fans to come on and get behind the squad, get behind Greg, let's enjoy it and make it work.
" Whatever the attendance is is whatever it is and we will do our best to budget within that. What we do want to do is keep the club in the best financial position it is in, we are not going to do anything daft and risk letting the club go the way that some other clubs are going to go this season. We have just got to try to get it right. "