I HAVE been watching football since 1962, and have never seen a team’s season collapse in the way that Eastleigh’s has.

Now that their third manager in a matter of months has gone, one wonders what strategy might work.

Perhaps the best we can hope for is to survive the season with the players we have, and start building a team for next year.

Sadly what I as a season ticket holder predict is that a new manager will come in and decide to ‘make his mark’ by selling most of the squad and fielding a batch of new players, a strategy that has manifestly failed repeatedly.

We continually host visiting teams and confront them with a bunch of acquaintances who probably first met the day before. Hardly any of the players who lost to Macclesfield on Tuesday were in the side that knocked Swindon out of the FA Cup in November.

The effort of the players can’t be faulted, but we do not have a team, just a group of strangers who happen to be wearing the same colour shirt.

Phil Hand

Southampton