Pompey's injury problems have piled up ahead of the visit to Carlisle.

Striker Paul McCallum and Danny East are the latest squad members ruled out.

McCallum has an ankle injury sustained in the reserves' defeat to Luton on Tuesday, while East is struggling with a hamstring strain picked up during the defeat against Shrewsbury.

The duo join Jack Whatmough, Andy Barcham and Paul Robinson in the treatment room, leaving Andy Awford with little room for manoeuvre for a game that sees the Blues with a desperate need for an improved performance - and a decent result - after poor shows against Wimbledon and Shrewsbury.

Awford talked to The News about the injuries, saying: 'It’s Paul’s ankle, he came off as a precaution at first. The physios assessed him at half-time and it was the right thing to do to take him off. He then came in Wednesday morning and has damage to his ankle.

‘He’s not available for selection for Carlisle and will have to look at it again over the weekend. With Danny, the hamstring has not gone, it has tweaked. I don’t think he is going to be out for the rest of the season, but there is a little bit of damage there and hopefully we have caught it early enough.

‘He will certainly miss the Carlisle game. Danny’s a great lad. He’s young, starting out in his career trying to get a run of games, but through injury, unfortunately it has been very stop-start for him.’

Pompey head to the far north-west 11 points off a play-off place and 11 points in front of 23rd-placed Tranmere, seemingly certain to be in League Two again next season.

Carlisle, on the other hand, are just three points in front of the bottom two and needing a victory to pull away.

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