Paul Huntington is on course to overcome an injury concern to return to the Carlisle United side against Rochdale.

The experienced Cumbrian has been nursing a minor calf problem since his full debut against Gillingham last weekend.

But manager Paul Simpson says the central defender is looking in good shape to be involved this weekend.

“He’s trained today, he’s fine,” said Simpson at today’s press conference.

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“He took a whack last Saturday but he ran yesterday, trained fully today.”

Huntington was not involved in Tuesday’s Papa John’s Trophy defeat to Manchester United Under-21s, but looks likely to face Jim Bentley’s Dale at Brunton Park.

Simpson said United had “a few little concerns” with other players but hoped he would have most of his players available.

“It’s not me trying to be clever but I don’t want to tell anybody outside the club who they are, because I don’t want to help the opposition with their preparation,” he said.

“We should have the majority fit and available for selection.”

Simpson confirmed that the fit-again pair of Ryan Edmondson and Morgan Feeney would again be involved on Saturday.

Edmondson returned as a sub after a hip-related lay-off on Tuesday while Feeney played his first 90 minutes since his comeback from a foot injury.

“I’m quite happy to openly say that they’ll be involved in the game at the weekend,” Simpson added.

On Edmondson, the manager said: “He seems to be in a good place. I think from what I’m being told it’s something from a previous injury where there’s a little bit of scar tissue remaining from it.

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“I don’t really know if you can ever get rid of it but something obviously happened which flared it up. We’ve just got to manage it as well as we can.

“He played the other night, he’s trained fully since then. We’re hoping he’s got through it and we’ve just got to manage it and hope he’s right now.”

Simpson, meanwhile, said the club are continuing to investigate the illness issue which has affected some players in the last week.

The players involved appear to have recovered but United’s manager wants more clarity on the matter.

“They seem ok today,” he said. “Jack Ellis was the one who was ill the other night when he came off, but he’s trained fully today so there are no issues there.

“We’re looking into everything. We don’t even know whether it was a sickness bug or whether they’re taking something before games.

“They have these caffeine shots…I don’t know what they take half the time, obviously everything’s legal and has to be passed, but you just wonder sometimes if it’s something that has an adverse reaction on players.

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“We’re looking into everything, asking players to think about what they’re doing in preparation for games, what are they eating, what time, what supplements do they take, do they drink these isotonic drinks…

“It might just be a nervous issue. My best mate Jamie Hoyland used to be sick at half-time every single game, and he’s the most calm player you’d ever look at.

“It might just be something like that and we don’t know. It just worries me when I see that, I don’t like to hear it or see it.

“We need to try and get to the bottom of it and get it out of the system if we possibly can.”

Simpson, meanwhile, said Tobi Sho-Silva, Ben Barclay and Joel Senior were continuing to make progress in their return from injuries.

“Tobi’s doing really well,” he said.

“We’re still looking weeks away – Tobi’s probably going to be end of September, Joel possibly the start of November to get a game for him, a bounce game of some sort, and Ben Barclay we’re looking at maybe beginning of October.

“Recovery is going as we expected and hopefully they’ll be fully fit and give us that little bit of freshness when they come back into the group.”