Carlisle United are continuing to operate with a player budget that is in the bottom six of League Two, directors have said.

But the Blues say they have maintained the same levels of spending on the team as last season despite the serious impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Chief executive Nigel Clibbens, in one of a series of updates to fans, gave some detail on how United’s current spending compares with rivals.

The director said head coach Chris Beech “often” refers to United’s challenge of competing with better-off opponents, with the Cumbrians set to finish 10th in the 24-team table.

And Clibbens added: “Yes – as we all know, we are fighting the financial and budget battle.

“We remain in the bottom quarter of League Two for player spending on EFL salary costs benchmarks in 2020/21, as we were in both 2019/20 and 2018/19 [before coronavirus].”

Clibbens, though, said United’s aim throughout had been to avoid reducing its football spending, and cost-saving measures taken elsewhere in the club had allowed them to do that.

He said the awarding of improved and longer contracts to players and staff going into 2021/22 would reduce “disruption” from a heavy “churn” of personnel in the summer.

He added: “The player cost and football expenses budget for 2020/21 was unchanged from 2019/20 and has remained so, even as the fan lockout extended beyond January 2021, which obviously worsened the problems beyond what we had forecast.

“This still allowed our window dealings in January to be unaffected.”

Clibbens’ comments on the club website came as he explained how the Blues had dealt with £1.2m of lost income as a consequence of the pandemic.

He said United had so far earned £280,000 through the iFollow streaming service, £175,000 through Government support measures such as the furlough scheme and £360,000 in Premier League bailout support cash, while making “cost savings” of £250,000.

This, Clibbens said, included lower matchday expenses because of games being played behind closed doors, furloughing staff and reducing other staff’s pay to 80 per cent, “cutting back to only essential spending off-the-field” and closing the club early during lockdowns.

Some staff are still on “flexi-furlough”, the director said, but most office staff are back at work, along with Blues Store staff after the store’s reopening last month.

Clibbens said United had not drawn on funding from financial backers Edinburgh Woollen Mill since May 2019 – including the Covid-19 crisis period.

Player sales – which the Blues yesterday revealed had brought in £1.1m – meant they had not gone back to Philip Day’s firm for extra funds on top of the £2.1m they had borrowed from March 2017 onwards.

United’s debts to EWM are now owed to another company with EWM links, Purepay Retail Limited, after the collapse into administration and subsequent sale of Day’s EWM retail brand.

“Financially we plan to continue to operate on a self-sufficient basis with no external funding in the remainder of 2020/21, and again for 2021/22 at this stage,” Clibbens added.