SHAUN Dyke's presence at Eastleigh's last two matches has heightened rumours that the Winchester City wing-back could be on his way to Sparshatts Stadium next season.

The 28-year-old right-sided player is out of contract at Winchester at the end of the season and, in the light of money man David Malone's departure this week, it's questionable whether the Wessex League champions would have the finances to keep him.

Eastleigh boss Paul Doswell doesn't deny his admiration for the player - nor his intention to try and sign him in the summer.

He confirmed: "Shaun's a quality player and a quality lad and we are interested in him.

"I think it's fairly common knowledge that he's not going to sign a new contract for Winchester in the summer and he's already phoned Mark Blake (Eastleigh's former Winchester defender) asking if we'd be interested.

"He already knows Blakey, Andy Forbes and Danny Smith from their Winchester days and would like to join them here."

Reading-based Dyke can't fail to have been impressed with the football Eastleigh have served up over the past seven days.

Having got their play-off push back on track with Saturday's 4-0 dismantling of Staines Town, they came through a highly-charged derby clash 3-0 against Salisbury City on Wednesday to stay fifth in the table.

"We've got 12 games to go and I reckon we need to win eight or nine of them to get into the play-offs," said Doswell ahead of tomorrow's trip to mid-table Cheshunt. "We deserve to get there after all the injury problems we've had to cope with.

"Now we've got virtually a full squad back and it was wonderful to look at the bench on Wednesday and see our new signing Alex Haddow sitting alongside Mark Blake, Paul Sales, James Stokoe and Lee Webber.

"There have been times this season when we've had to play a 4-3-3 because we've only had three midfielders available. But how I really love to play is a 4-4-2 with two wide players attacking."