Where there's a Will, there's a way

By Wendy Gee -

Picture by Jamie Montigue

MANAGER Ian Baird is looking forward to pointing new Eastleigh signing Will Hendry back in the right direction.

At just 23, the highly-rated attacking midfielder has never truly settled since leaving Millwall, where he made two starts and one substitute appearance as a teenager.

Despite all the to-ing and fro-ing since then, the Spitfires are in no doubt about Hendry's ability.

Baird though, concedes that Hendry "seems to have lost his way a bit" and is confident he can steer him back on the right path.

From what I'm led to believe Will comes with a bit of baggage, but I talked to three or four people about him before we signed him and couldn't speak more highly of him," said the Spitfires boss.

"So-called 'problem players' have never bothered me in any case," he added.

"I always point to the example of Rocky Baptiste when I was manager of Havant & Waterlooville.

"People told me not to touch Rocky with a barge pole, but he scored 76 goals in three seasons.

"Dealing with Hendry is not a problem - I'm just glad we've got him."

With attack-minded trio Anthony Riviere, Peter Adeniyi and Shaun McAuley all injured, Eastleigh have paired warrior-like duo Jamie Brown and Ross Bottomley in central midfield in pre-season.

"No disrespect to the other lads who've been playing in midfield, but Will gives us a bit of quality we've been missing," said Baird. "Jamie, I'm sure, would always say he's most effective as a centre-forward and Ross would probably say his best position is centre-half.

"Ross has done extremely well since he came to us from Totton and I'd like to thank Totton boss Stuart Ritchie for doing us another favour!

"But Will's always been a thorn in our side and hopefully he's the one to give us that bit extra in the final third.

"People forget that in the past we've had to get rid of creative, attacking players like Damian Scannell and Mark Marshall who were sold to Football League clubs.

"Losing Damian in the January transfer window (two seasons ago) was a big blow to us. We brought in Mark to replace him and as soon as he found out bigger clubs were coming in for him he became a different player. Both were outstanding for us."