Ben Barclay must wait to make his Carlisle United comeback after suffering a minor setback in training.

Manager Paul Simpson had hoped to welcome the defender back for this weekend’s trip to Crawley Town.

But Stockport County loan man Barclay is not yet ready to return after a calf injury.

“He did some work over the weekend, running on a treadmill and felt no discomfort,” said Simpson. “We then tried to get him out for the first part of the session on the grass.

“It was quite damp and wet on Monday when we went out, and he just felt something.

“Rather than pushing and trying to get him through it, we took him out of it, kept him off his feet for a couple of days.

“There’s a possibility he’s going to be back out on the grass to run again on Friday with a view to us building him up then to join in next week at some point.

“Hopefully it’s not too bad. We did say when he did it that it would be four weeks, and we’re still within that time frame.

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“We were just hoping we could maybe get him a few days earlier than expected, but that’s not been the case.”

Simpson says that, for the Crawley game, he will pick from the same 19 players that were available last weekend.

Other players on the sidelines are making good progress, meanwhile.

Fin Back could be just a month or so away from a comeback.

“He’s doing really well, in terms of his recovery,” said Simpson of the Nottingham Forest loan defender.

“I speak to him or exchange text messages, and Chris [Brunskill] the physio is speaking with the Forest physio.

“We’re looking, if everything goes to plan, maybe the end of March he should be fit and available.”

Simpson said Ryan Edmondson has joined in plenty of non-contact training as he continues his comeback from a shoulder injury.

He said Taylor Charters is making good progress from his hamstring injury, while Brennan Dickenson is hoping to be back for the last one or two games of the season after a cruciate knee ligament injury.

And there is more good news for home-grown midfielder Josh Dixon, who is close to a return to action after his own cruciate absence.

“Josh has joined in full training, so he’s getting back to getting close to playing games again,” Simpson said.

“The cotton wool’s coming off and he’s starting to get back involved again.

“He had a little bit of a tussle with Omari [Patrick] in training where they both fell to the ground and you both hold your breath, but they both got up and he had a smile on his face.

“He’s back into it and just has to build his fitness up.”

Simpson said United may look to send Dixon out on loan in the final months of the season as part of his comeback.

“We’ve got to try and get a plan for him, to get some games under his belt,” he added.

“If that means going out on loan somewhere to get some games, we might have to do that, because we don’t have the option of putting him into reserve games here.”