Carlisle United have allowed three trialists - including former QPR forward Kingsley Eshun - to leave Brunton Park.

The three hopefuls featured in Tuesday's 3-0 reserve friendly defeat at Sunderland.

But none did enough to convince boss Steven Pressley to take a further chance on them.

Pressley said today: “After the game I spoke to [the three trialists] individually and made them aware we couldn’t see the benefits of taking them in.

“We wish them the best and we move on."

A fourth unnamed trialist is still with the Cumbrians but Pressley suggested he was not under consideration for a deal this campaign.

“There’s one trialist [still] here, but he didn’t feature in the game and he’s only in for the week," United's boss said.

"There is nothing imminent and it’s not one we’d look to do this season, it would be a longer-term one.”

United’s boss added of the game in the north-east: “When you play these games and bring in a lot of trialists, a lot of the time you’re not really working to the same type of tactical framework that you do with the first-team, so it becomes a little bit fragmented.

“You look at more individual performance. From that respect we got a lot out of it. George Glendon played 90 minutes and did really well in terms of his work ethic, because they were a very strong Sunderland side.

“JK [Jason Kennedy] got 60 strong minutes, Peter Grant played 90 and did really well, and our young players featured. It’s good for them to experience playing against senior players.

“It was a really good exercise and something we are keen to repeat. Especially for our young players it’s good to play men’s football and really gear them up for that.

“We’ve already got another couple of bounce games organised. For the development of our players and to allow the likes of JK [Jason Kennedy] to get up to speed, they are really important to us.”

Pressley said Liam McCarron had not featured in the game as he was keen to assess the trialists in the same position, while on another absentee in Mike Jones, the Carlisle boss said: “Jones’s fitness is very good and we felt it would be ideal for him just to continue to train with us.

“If I don’t think it’s a benefit to the player, I’m not gonna play him, and Mike was happy with that.”