Ben Barclay is set to miss the next eight weeks of action in the latest injury blow for Carlisle United.

But things are not looking as serious as feared with Morgan Feeney and Ryan Edmondson.

Manager Paul Simpson gave an update on United’s growing injury list after the 1-1 draw with Swindon Town.

Defender Barclay had to sit out the game and the on-loan Stockport County man is facing a lay-off.

“Ben Barclay’s the worst of them all, the longest we’ve got,” said Simpson.

READ MORE: Carlisle United 1-1 Swindon Town - as it happened!

“He’s damaged three ligaments in his ankle, just with landing awkwardly from a set play in the game last week.

“We’re looking at possibly eight weeks for Ben. He’s in a boot at the moment just to take the weight off. That’s a bit of a pain for us and him.”

Captain Feeney also missed a second successive game with a foot problem.

But assessment by a specialist on Friday has raised hopes that he could be back in action this month.

“Morgan is a little bit better news than we feared, because we were fearing with the way that he was feeling about it that we were looking at the possibility of surgery, which would have put him out for about 12 weeks,” said Simpson.

“It looks as though that’s not the case. At first we thought he’d broken his foot, then we thought he’d had a tear of the plantar fascia in his foot. Apparently it’s just a bleed around it.

“I’ve had the information but not being a medical person I’m struggling to understand it all, but my understanding is he’s got a bleed and some fluid around that area.

“If we de-load him and take him off his feet and try and get that to reduce, we can then start loading him back up and he should, fingers crossed, be able to maybe be back on the grass within a week-ten days, and we may have a chance of him being available for possibly the Gillingham game [on August 27] or maybe the game after.

“He wants to be back in two weeks – whether that’s optimistic, that’s typical Morgan, we’ll wait and see.”

Striker Edmondson, meanwhile, missed the Swindon game with a hip problem, United having further assessed the injury this week.

“Ryan has this issue with a mass of liquid on the top of his thigh,” said Simpson.

“We feared it might be a tear of his quads or bone issue on his hip – it’s neither of those.

“We just have to take everything off him, de-load him for maybe a week to ten days and hope the swelling will go away, then start building him up.

“He might be a bit longer than two weeks.”

Simpson, meanwhile, said Taylor Charters would be back in training with the squad after his hamstring lay-off this week, although he would not yet be considered for selection.

“We’re hoping he’s going to train on Monday with the rest of the group,” said United’s manager.

“He’s dipped in and out. He’s getting a lot of high-intensity running, high-speed running.

“We need to get him a couple of weeks of work. I think if I’m honest I’m probably looking at pencilling him for the Man Utd U21 game in the Papa John’s Trophy [on August 30].

“That would be a good opportunity for him. Then we might have another game the week after.

“We’ve got to be right with Taylor. He’s one we maybe have to say we didn’t deal with that one properly. But his enthusiasm and the look of him, we felt as though he was in a really good place, then unfortunately he had a recurrence.

“But that’s the area of games we’re looking to try and reintroduce him.”