EASTLEIGH’S players can forget any idea of a relaxed build-up to Christmas following yesterday's helter-skelter 4-3 defeat at Southport.

New manager Martin Allen sees hard work as the cure for the Spitfires’ National League ills and has vowed to put things right on the training pitch.

The trip to the Merseyrail Community Stadium – Allen’s first league game in charge – turned out disastrously for the visitors who ended up with nine men against the hosts’ ten.

Eastleigh put up a spirited fight to claw back to 4-3, but former Barnet boss Allen saw a drastic drop in standards from their 2-0 FA Cup heroics at Halifax four days earlier.

“We were second best all over the park,” he concluded.

“I thought we were very poor, very disappointing.

“I didn’t enjoy watching that. It’s quite clear we just weren’t good enough.

“That’s why I’m here, to shake things up.”

The result leaves Eastleigh a mediocre 12th, ten points off play-off pace and 17 behind new league leaders Lincoln, who beat Tranmere 2-1.

Troubleshooter Allen – Eastleigh’s third manager of a turbulent season that has already seen off Chris Todd and Ronnie Moore – said: “It’s never easy (to turn things round), but this is why people ring me up and ask me to be their manager, because things ain’t right.

“This is what I do and this is what I will do.

“We’ll get back to the training pitch and work on it.

“We’ll help lift them (the players) and get them going again.”

Southport, hovering just above the relegation zone, had a mixed start, taking a fourth-minute lead through Andrai Jones before Liam Hynes got his marching orders for a lunge on Eastleigh’s latest arrival Sam Togwell.

Numbers were evened up after 23 minutes when Partington saw red for sliding in on Neil Ashton and the Sandgrounders doubled their lead on the half-hour as Liam Nolan finished from a tight angle.

Reda Johnson pulled one back for Eastleigh three minutes later amid a goalmouth scramble, but Southport restored their two-goal cushion shortly after half-time when Declan Weeks made it 3-1.

A fightback looked on when James Constable netted Eastleigh’s second, but the visitors were reduced to nine men in the 69th minute when debut-making Wolverhampton Wanderers loanee Hakeem Odoffin was deemed to have fouled Jones.

The Spitfires’ misery intensified when Ben Strevens had a penalty awarded against him which was tucked away by Jamie Allen for 4-2.

Eastleigh dug in and Constable grabbed his second of the game four minutes from time, latching onto Mikael Mandron’s cross, but Allen said: “Too late.

“It’s alright a boxer losing for 14 rounds and then coming back and throwing a few punches in the last minutes, but that don’t win a boxing match and it was the same with this game.”

The manager did, however, have words of praise for his young former Barnet charge Odoffin. “I thought he was a bit unlucky to be sent off,” he said.

“Hakeem’s only 18 and he was our best player. He had pace, he had athleticism and he got up and down.

“I don’t think he’s played right-side midfield very often before.

“He was a positive on the day.”

Eastleigh's next game is the live BT Sport-televised clash at home to Boreham Wood on December 27 (7.45pm).