Joint-boss Zander Shayler: Things will soon click into place at Eastwood CFC

A 5-1 defeat at home to Sleaford Town on Saturday was followed by a 5-0 loss at Melton Town on Tuesday, numerous changes having had to be made to the squad for each game.

And while Shayler felt the scorelines ultimately flattered their opponents, he acknowledged patience is needed as a new squad is built more or less from scratch.

He said: “We only have four players remaining from before we came in. That meant a lot of new faces on Saturday and a further five or six changes on Tuesday due to reasons such as work commitments.

"So we’ve had young players featuring who have been with our U18s and U21s and that will remain a good option for us, including 17-year-old Harrison Eastwood who has been with us since the under-14s and has played in the last couple of first team games, but we’re keen to bring in more faces in the coming days and are actively pursuing doing so.”

The game with Sleaford saw Eastwood get off to a perfect start with an own goal putting them in front in the opening minute, but by the 20th minute they were 4-1 down. At Melton, Lavell White’s red card midway through the first-half put Eastwood on the back foot and the hosts were able to capitalise.

Shayler said: “It was a mad 12 minutes that cost us on Saturday and we then had to dig in on Tuesday after going down to ten men. Anyone at the games will know we’ve done much better than the scorelines suggest.

"We’ll be fine. We have a free weekend now meaning we can get new faces in, have some training sessions with them and get the team to gel a lot more.

"We’ve got to keep the lads motivated and interested, and the same goes for the fans of whom we have a core group follow us regularly and as a minimum deserve to watch a team that will work hard and give it everything.

"The club continues to have plenty of potential but it has to be done properly. We have a superb junior setup with about 25 teams and there’s a pathway to the first team as shown by Harrison’s progress.”

Eastwood go to Leicester Nirvana in their next game on December 18.