Carlisle United supporters should love latest Bradford City transfer revelation: View | OneFootball

The Blues were targeting one of their league rivals' top players, again.

Carlisle United have been urged by many fans to get a creative midfielder into the building before the start of the season.

After the arrival of Charlie Wyke was confirmed on Monday morning, the Blues now have a very imposing striker force, with Luke Armstrong and Georgie Kelly to go along with the returning forward.

They also have a lot of central midfield options, which will only be strengthened by Callum Guy's eventual return to the first team after he suffered an ACL injury against Leyton Orient in early December that is going to keep him from being fit until after the 2024/25 campaign gets underway.

What's arguably missing is more bodies who play in between the two. Forward-thinking minds that can link the play between the midfield and the forward areas, and threaten with clever passes into dangerous areas for the strikers to get on to.

Well, it has now been revealed that Bradford City's Jamie Walker was a target of the Blues.

Carlisle United's interest in Jamie Walker

The Scottish midfielder, who scored for the Bantams in the first leg of the League Two play-off semi-final matchup between the two clubs, which Carlisle eventually went on to win, has stated that the Cumbrians were interested in him, prior to Bradford taking up the option in his contract to extend it by a further year.

He told Football Scotland: "I actually finished the season well so I had a bit of interest. I think the club got a bit of wind of it so they took that option up. I'm quite happy, it's a good club.

"But there were clubs in League One too but my agent never really said who. It never really got that far because as soon as they extended my option, I never had any leeway or that."

Jamie Walker links should make Carlisle fans happy

The 31-year-old, who is originally from Edinburgh, and therefore would have been closer to home had he made the move to Brunton Park.

Whether you feel that Walker specifically was a player that the Blues needed to go after is one thing. What should be mostly agreed upon is that Carlisle need more creative options in the middle of the park and, given Paul Simpson's previous comments about the positions they were targeting, which didn't feature an attacking midfielder, this news should be pretty encouraging.

The Scotsman produced some decent attacking numbers last season, especially in the latter stages of the campaign. He registered 13 combined goals and assists in 30 games for the Bantams, as well as playing 1.8 key passes per game.

There are doubts about whether he may be good enough to be in a team that wants to challenge right at the top end of League Two, and whether he'd be able to continue to produce long-term.

Carlisle's second most recent signing, Ethan Robson - a left-footed centre-mid - is similar to Walker, so Simpson may see him as the one to be that creative outlet.

There is a feeling that another spark plug option is so that all bases in the team are covered, in terms of different profiles, but it's good to see that the Blues are trying to go after players of Walker's nature.