MICHAEL Green’s two-match suspension forces Richard Hill to change his Eastleigh back-four for tomorrow’s home game against Lincoln City – but it’s nothing he’s not used to.

Reshuffling his defence has become second nature to the Spitfires’ boss.

But still Eastleigh have stood up to the best the Vanarama Conference can throw at them and, despite last Sunday’s 2-0 setback at home to Altrincham, they are nicely placed in eighth, two points outside the play-offs with games in hand.

Left-back Green, sent off for the second time this season against Alty, has been in an out of the side in any case while he battles through an ankle problem.

Will Evans (groin) and Paul Reid (hamstring) are also carrying niggling injuries that have prevented them training and the club are today awaiting scan results on centre-back/skipper Dean Beckwith’s damaged shoulder.

“I don’t want Greener suspended, but circumstances have given him the rest he needed,” said Hill. “His ankle gets better, but then he plays and it puts him back a bit.

“With Will, if you rest him through the week he’s fine, and it’s the same with Reidy. Truth be told though, Reidy shouldn’t have played against Braintree but we had Dan Spence out with flu that day.

“Both of them could do with a rest and it means we can’t do anything in respect of defence on the training ground.

“I’m not complaining, but this is the life of a football manager. You can’t have everything how you want it.

“When things don’t go right, people say: ‘What have you been doing in training?’ and the answer is ‘nothing’ defensively because if these players trained they wouldn’t be playing.

“We also have to look after (new AFC Bournemouth loan signing) Joe Partington. He’s had rotten luck with injuries in his short career - and not just little injuries, horrible ones.

“He trained yesterday, but can’t train on Astroturf because he’s coming back from a knee injury.”

Despite the Altrincham setback – their first home defeat - Hill was more than satisfied with two wins and two draws over the festive period.

“Before Telford I was looking for eight points from five games and we got eight from four,” he said. “It was unfortunate we didn’t improve on that but, let’s be honest, until we got into the last third, we played no better or no worse against Altrincham than against Telford, Braintree or Woking.

“I’m not going to rip into the players because they got eight points and did what I asked them to do.”

Asked if he intended dipping back into the transfer market after signing Partington and midfielder Brian Howard, Hill said: “I’ve enquired about the availability and salaries of one or two players I like at other Conference clubs - and how some of these clubs have got the audacity to call us ‘big-spending Eastleigh’ I’ll never know!

“I’ve taken it with a pinch of salt when people have talked about our ‘massive’ budget, but not now I know what some of these players are earning.”

For Lincoln fans, tomorrow is their third visit to the Silverlake. Having seen their team beaten 2-1 in the FA Cup in November, they made a wasted return journey the following week when the league game was postponed due to a sauna fire at the Imps’ hotel.

With no other Premier games tomorrow, victory would propel Eastleigh into fifth, level on points with fourth-placed Grimsby.

Mid-table Lincoln, though, have hit an impressive three-game winning streak, putting paid to Alfreton, Grimsby and league leaders Barnet.