Manager Paul Doswell felt a familiar sense of frustration after again seeing Sutton come out on the wrong end of a tight game at Eastleigh.

”I thought we dominated the first half hour and had two or three efforts, one that was cleared off the line and another where Aswad Thomas couldn’t quite get his feet sorted, and we finished the half well after Eastleigh had had their own good spell. The second half was more even, but they scored with their first shot on goal and Richard Hill said to us afterwards that he thought we were the better side, and I’d agree with that.

Eastleigh are a big physical side and you’ve got to be brave and try and get the ball down. That’s what we asked the players to do, but we went too long in the second half and that played in to their hands a bit. We tried to brighten things up with the changes in the last twenty minutes, and to stretch the game and get the ball wide in the last fifteen minutes. We had lots of pressure at the end, but you need something to drop for you in those situations and it didn’t. I’m very disappointed, because we deserved something from the game.

There’s not a lot between the sides – we’re both quite physical and we matched each other in that respect. We had six corners in the first fifteen minutes and were very close at times, but it wasn’t to be and we’re disappointed. It’s a hard place to come and you’d be happy with a point. We knew it would be a tight game, but it was a good strike from Mark Yeates. It was a good save from Jamie as well, but unfortunately it looped up for their player to score.

We wanted to have a big striker and a little striker up front tonight so started with Moses Emmanuel instead of Craig Dundas, who might have struggled with the Saturday/Tuesday games. We felt that Moses would cause them problems and in the first half hour I think we did that and looked very bright, but you need to get in front in games like this, and it makes it hard for the side who goes behind. We never quite managed to get that big chance where we felt we should have scored.

Great support tonight on a wet Tuesday with over 150 here, and they were really loud as well and got behind the team, so a big thanks to the fans. One day we’ll get them a win at Eastleigh!

We were very aware that we have a tough start and the win against Orient meant we had points on the board early, and if we can get something at Tranmere we’ll be over the moon at four or six points after the first week. But even three points wouldn’t be bad – if we’d drawn against Orient, drawn at Eastleigh and drawn at Tranmere we’d be quite happy, so the initial win on Saturday was really important and we should take confidence from it.

There isn’t much immediate good news on the injury front, and I don’t think anything will change before the Tranmere game. Adam Coombes will have a scan on his ankle and is probably about a month away from playing. Bradley Hudson-Odoi is about two weeks away from being able to play, but once he’s fit we’ll be looking to get him out on loan to get him games. Simon Walton is doing light running, but we’ve got the same 16 or 17 fit for Saturday and that’s probably what we’ll take with us.