There is one goalscoring option that Keith Curle has still not tried during this extended Carlisle United drought, and one wonders if, in all the circumstances, he isn't worth a go.

He has found the net, after all, for the first team this season, and also at the home of the Premier League champions, and while it would be the height of foolishness to expect a kid of two senior appearances to transform a flagging side, would there honestly be anything to lose by looking afresh at Cameron Salkeld?

There has been plenty to lose by using all the other options this side of Christmas, after all. United are still losing plenty, and the crisis has taken their manager into the free agent market with increasing keenness.

The results of the latest shopping trips are yet to pan out. Curle says his five additions in the space of two weeks will keep his squad "competitive". They will also keep numbers up as injuries and suspensions continue to bite.

But it must be about more than just numbers. Either the new faces are equipped to make an immediate mark or they are filling gaps. So far we have had cameos from two of them, Junior Joachim and James Hooper, amid the bigger goals deficit left by more established players.

A run of seven games without scoring barely needs any more underlining. A trip of 337 miles to Yeovil would be a long way for another blank and one dearly hopes today is the day.

Yet options, thanks to Shaun Miller's red card and Nicky Adams' hamstring injury, are limited even as Jason Kennedy and Jabo Ibehre near a return, and while it may be clutching at tiny straws to be thinking of new alternatives at this point, why not give the boy a try?

No doubt Curle has plenty of reasons why Salkeld, having scored against Fleetwood in the Checkatrade Trophy in November, has not set foot onto the pitch in a first-team game since, why that little flash of potential has not been examined further.

Naturally, United's boss will have observed the teenager in training and around the club, and will have taken soundings from others inside the building. It cannot be said that the youth team's recent results have been exceptional while, until recently, the senior side were well positioned in the promotion race, with little need to risk wild cards from the academy.

But now? You just never know, and at the very least the Blues would not be blooding a player much less experienced than Joe Ward (no Football League appearances), Samir Nabi (the same) or Hooper (three appearances for Rochdale before further steps in non-league).

Joachim, previously in Luxembourg, is tasting English football for the first time and while Ben Tomlinson has considerably more career appearances at 27, his last Football League goal was in 2012. Among other recent additions, George Waring hasn't scored in 30 games.

Many of these are young players trying to find a way. Hopefully their careers go on and flourish. In United's predicament, though, it is at best an unpredictable range of options and it is fair to ask whether walking along the "pathway" that supposedly exists between academy and senior ranks would make things any worse?

The point is not just about Salkeld the individual, even if he showed promise in scoring at Leicester in the FA Youth Cup and also notched twice for the under-18s last weekend. It is about what United are producing in general, and what the point is of their academy if a chance does not come when the opportunity seems most obvious.

A couple of good moments is not the basis for a lasting conclusion. But Curle had enough of a hunch to put Salkeld (and Jordan Holt) on the pitch in that Trophy tie and it was reassuring to see the pair of them open up a Fleetwood defence that, while by no means first choice, wasn't completely green. Uwe Rosler's back four that night were aged 26, 25, 22 and 21, the goalkeeper 23.

So why not consider that hunch again, instead of different hunches on equally unproven players from the trialist world? Not from the start necessarily, but as a substitute with a fair chance of removing his bib?

On this bleak run it might even generate a little hope. In last weekend's match programme there was a feature by historian David Steele on Carlisle's 1990/91 season, which is seldom the subject of wistful nostalgia.

It was the campaign after the 1989/90 promotion collapse, featuring Eric Gates, the demise of Clive Middlemass, bad financial losses, a home crowd of 1,762 and a final position of 20th in Division Four, goal difference -42.

Those comparing United's efforts now to what happened in '89/90 will have turned the page quickly. Yet it was noted by Steele, that, while it had been a poor campaign, "one bright spot had been the emergence of local talent such as Darren Edmondson and Jeff Thorpe, both of whom were regulars by the end of the season."

In increasingly tight times their involvement was essential. The "pathway" then was short and well lit. Both those Cumbrian boys developed significant United careers and many others followed.

We do not yet know how Carlisle are going to have to cut their cloth from here, with details of their loan arrangement with Edinburgh Woollen Mill still to emerge. Already, though, chief executive Nigel Clibbens has admitted the club's current wage bill cannot be sustained by their general income and current attendance levels.

Someone has to pick up the tab, in other words, and then it comes down to how big that tab is allowed to be. An ability to produce even a degree of your own talent in this position would be helpful, and would maybe also encourage us to think of United as a body where certain parts can be nurtured and grown.

It might be one good thing we could take out of this difficult spring. Heavens, it might even make us think a fraction more kindly about the supposed proving ground of the Checkatrade Trophy.

Small mercies indeed. But given that there is no gamble the Blues could take that would make their current form much worse, a touch of faith in youth would come at barely any cost at all.