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" It is a big season for me, hopefully I have bedded in and I can show everybody what I am trying to do. There have been a few players that have left but we have been very fortunate to bring four in, I still think we need a couple more in, two or three to come in and give the whole squad competition for places. We need that because it is going to be a very, very competitive league this year.
" The lads have come back very, very fit, we set the targets and standards last year, we've tried to push on from that. Even from the first two days of training they are running a little bit further and a little bit faster than they have done this time last year. The football has been fantastic as well considering they have had six to eight weeks off, we're very, very pleased with the first couple of days and we'll be working very, very hard in the pre-season to make sure that we are ready for the first game at Walsall.
" It's definitely fitness work but we do a lot of football fitness as well so they still have a lot of the ball. Players nowadays, even from the top level all the way down, look after themselves properly in the summertime, they come back fit. You can start at a different level to what probably I did when I first came back unfit and it probably took you the six weeks to get fit. I think nowadays it probably takes you a week on building up the fitness and then you have got five weeks of good football trying to get them ready for the full 90 minutes which is excellent. I think that is the difference between years gone by to now.
" Everybody came back fantastically well, we spoke to them after the season saying that we wanted to push on and that it was going to be very difficult. They have all looked after themselves though, they have had a great break and are all looking very well on the first impressions of the first two days work. I think football banter is the same wherever you go but it is good that we have a fantastic team spirit anyway, we certainly have no egos in the team. We have a lot of hard working lads who are trying to improve themselves on and off the pitch.
" They do welcome new players coming in, they make them feel very, very special, they look after them, they treat them as their own because sometimes it needs one person to pull something out of the bag and that person is part of the squad. When we all win that is fantastic, when we all go through a sticky patch that is when the team spirit comes through and I think that has been great the first two days because the new lads have bedded in very, very well. "
" Blowing our own staff trumpet, we have been in the game a long time and we know how to start off and build it up. We were very pleased with last seasons pre-season, we've surpassed it already with running further and faster and the football has been quality. It's a slight build up, we're not trying to get them fit by the end of the week.
" We've got to make sure that they are ready, sharp, fit, strong, quick and know their roles and responsibilities by the time Walsall comes along. We've got six fantastic games to play as well which aren't too far away, and the three huge big games at home which I think will be fantastic for us because it will be good for the fitness as well. We can show how good the football was that we played last season and we have to take it into next season.
" It's a priority to get a central defender in, we are hot on the heels of a couple of players at the moment, we are just waiting for an answer off both of them. We're very, very hopeful that we can do something in the next week or so, the quicker we can do it the better. If that doesn't materialise we have spoken to managers and coaches about loans but that isn't ideal. You always want your players to come in and be a part of the football club and not be a loan signing.
" We have that in the bag if the defenders don't materialise but we are quite hopeful that the people we are speaking to that they fancy coming to Carlisle to improve on what we did last year. I think we just tell them what Carlisle is all about on how it has progressed over the last two years, not just the football staff but the people behind the scenes who are working very, very hard on improving the club's image and improving the whole club as itself.
" We are just honest, it's a lovely place to come and it's a lovely place to be and then just try to sell your ideas on how you want to play and how the staff and the players work. I think if you can hit home that the player is going to be earning his crust, he's going to be enjoying himself and he is going to be a vital part of the football club to take it on, then I think that is a huge selling point. "
" Normally if they are out of contract we try to get in touch with the player themselves, the majority of them have agents so you try to speak them. Then it's just really a process of trying to make everybody happy and making sure that Carlisle get the player for the value that we think he is worth and for the player to be happy with what he is getting. Then it's down to the football, the way we train and how we treat people, I think so far we have treated people excellently on off and the pitch.
" I think we are a family club, we try to look after each other and sometimes that is a big plus for people who have to move away and they are not sure where their family is going to settle. We've got all that in hand on trying to help them settle as much as possible, and just concentrate on their football which we certainly did last year. Because we certainly didn't compromise the way we played at all through the season, we knew how we were going to go about it and we did it, that gives everybody confidence.
" Realistically you always try to finish in the top half of the table which is fantastic, but to be fair we set our own little private goals. One of them must be to try to emulate and to try to better what we did last season, but it's very, very difficult and to finish in the top twelve would be fantastic. Privately and in the club itself we've set targets which if we recruit the players that we can get in the next few weeks leading up to the first game of the season we have got every chance of doing that because we have got a very, very competitive squad.
" I think it's a fantastic league, I'm sure Leeds won't have their own way, Forest certainly didn't have their own way last year. You've got some big teams that are going to have a huge big budget to attract players, the likes of Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Millwall to a certain extent who got relegated the season before. Then Luton and Southend who want to go straight back up because everyone is trying to get to the Premiership but it's a step at a time.
" The teams that are already in the league have shown that they can compete and I think that the league was very, very close last season. Everybody could beat everybody at certain stages of the season, and it's not going to be easy for them. It's certainly not going to be easy for Southend, Luton and Leeds that's for sure. We did enquire about Tommy Black in the middle of last season but I think he went to Bradford and he had a little bit of a bad time there. "
" He's signed for Southend now, he's a London lad, I know he came to Carlisle on loan in his early days when I think he was at Arsenal. It will be a decent signing for them though if he can get into the team. Even though you sign players to improve your squad it doesn't automatically guarantee them a place because they have to work very, very hard to get the shirt of somebody else who has done very, very well last season.
" It's good that Derek Holmes has got fixed up at Rotherham, Derek was a great lad, he was a very, very good professional. He understood the situation last year that he was going to be used sparingly and when he did he scored the goals. You always wish that players who leave the club can get fixed up and I think that is a good place for Derek to go. We haven't got anybody that isn't connected to the football club training at the moment. There is a lot of speculation on players, especially the people that are from Carlisle anyway but we certainly haven't got any trialists in at the moment.
" The Walsall game is vitally, vitally important, hopefully the pre-season games that we have got and the build up of the fact that the quality gets better as we go along. Pre-season games really don't matter, I think that win, lose or draw, when I was at Bolton we went through a pre-season where we never won a game and almost lost every game 3-0 or 4-0. Yet coming into the season we won ten on the trot, you can say that if you win every single game that it gives you confidence, of course it does.
" The goal and the objectives that we set for players though is to make sure that they are fit, ready and raring to go for the Walsall game. If that means playing well in the pre-season then that is excellent, if they don't then it is up to the coaching staff and the players themselves to put that right over the eight weeks that we are working.
" You have to try to use your contacts as much as you possibly can to get these young kids who are bursting to play for the first team, we did that with Joe Garner last year. If they just can't get there then let's come to Carlisle and enhance our reputation, score a few goals and help us get to where we want to go. If you want to come full-time then that would be fantastic. "