Eastleigh hope to know by this weekend whether goalkeeper Lee Webber will agree to join them as competition for Wayne Shaw.

Although Webber's club Fareham Town would not stand in his way of moving up two levels to the Ryman Premier, the 26-year-old is still weighing up his options.

Eastleigh boss Paul Doswell said: "There are a couple of little nags in Lee's mind. For one thing it's whether he wants to swap something he's comfortable with for something he knows little about and, also, Lee works until 12 o'clock on Saturdays and he'd need get time off work every other week.

"He's going to think about it and let us know over the weekend.

"Lee's quite a studious type of bloke and had glasses on when he came to speak to us. When we'd seen him before he must've been wearing contact lenses and we had a bit of laugh with him saying it's not often you try and sign a short-sighted goalkeeper!"

Having set a Fareham club record of over 300 first-team appearances, Webber would be a huge loss to the Wessex League side, but manager Louis Savage said: "He's a real nice lad and we wouldn't want to stand in his way of playing higher. If we did, he'd be on contract.

"Lee said no one's ever come in for him before, which I find really strange.

"He's young, engaged and could probably do with some extra money - and there's no way we could match Eastleigh for wages.

"If he goes, there'd be no sour grapes, but he'd be difficult to replace.

"You generally know where to pick up a centre-forward or whatever, but good goalkeepers are harder to find."

One promise Webber has made Fareham is that he'll be available for next Saturday's (December 11) FA Vase trip to Deal Town.

Doswell said: "I wouldn't want him to miss the Vase game either and I've even said he could sign the initial Ryman forms for us and stay with Fareham. But Lee feels that if he does agree to join us, he wants to come lock, stock and barrel."

Webber misses Fareham's trip to Totton tomorrow because he is serving a seven-day suspension for a professional foul.

Eastleigh, second in the Ryman Premier Division, go searching for their third straight league win at Heybridge Swifts.