When will Carlisle United confirm new staff appointments?

The Blues are recruiting a new goalkeeper coach and head physiotherapist.

They also want to clarify the future of first-team coach Billy Barr.

Chief executive Nigel Clibbens says while discussions on individual roles may be at different stages, the plan is to confirm them all together.

And this should be done before returning to the preparation period on June 24.

“I think Paul (Simpson)’s approach is he wants to tackle them all in one go,” Clibbens said.

“So even though we’ve made progress in some areas, he wants to announce that ‘this is an established team on the back end.’ So once everything is ready, everything will come together.

“We’ve got Billy, who was on a short-term contract, then we’ve got Dave Timmins’ successor as goalkeeping coach and then Chris Brunskill as head physiotherapist.

Paul Simpson and Piataks want to bring in some key off-field figures (Photo: Richard Parkes)

“So instead of saying, ‘We have this one person,’ we want to try to do it all together. And of course, as we get closer to the pre-season, this news will come out. But we feel pretty good about where we are and I expect there will be an announcement soon.”

There was upheaval within United’s squad on the eve of pre-season last year when goalkeeper coach Paul Gerrard left, but Clibbens said this time the Blues should have everything covered ahead of that stage.

“I think everything should be ready well before the season,” he said.

United are also interviewing for a number of other off-field positions in the club’s administration.

This is part of the Piataks’ plans to increase the club’s workforce as the Blues grow.

The positions created by United include director of commercial revenue, facility manager and executive support specialist.

About these vacancies, Clibbens said: “There is a lot of interest. I think people from further afield than our local borders recognize that this is an exciting place to get involved.

“Everyone will know that certainly on the back end, because our resources have been limited in the past, we have had to really adapt and work with what we have for many years. And it was a fight, there’s no doubt about it.

“The staff have worked incredibly hard as the club has grown, even in recent times before the takeover, serving more fans, gaining more commercial business, increasing retail sales – all of these things have been essentially done using the same workforce.

“And as we grow bigger and bigger, it becomes unsustainable. So we need to build infrastructure and a stronger team off the pitch to support the wider club.

“It’s happening now. We interview new people almost every day.

“We are close to starting something commercial for the leader of this team. We have two other facility manager positions to manage the entire facility, which will be even more important now as construction of the East Stand and other aspects continue.

“So there are a lot of opportunities here. It’s an exciting place.”