Andy Hessenthaler says friendships will go out the window on Saturday when Dover travel to his former club Eastleigh in the National League.

Hessenthaler left Eastleigh in October to join Whites with the manager’s job given to his former assistant Ben Strevens.

The Dover boss is looking forward to going back to the club he was in charge of for 10 months.

Hessenthaler said: “I’ve not been gone long but it will be good to see Ben who was my assistant. It made sense that they gave the job to him and he’s carried the good work on.

“They are on a decent run. It’s a good club and I’m looking forward to going back to them. Come 3pm, I want to beat them and I know they want to beat us.”

Eastleigh are up to ninth following their 3-1 win at Maidstone United on Tuesday and are six games unbeaten.

Meanwhile, Dover had moved off the bottom of the table and are only four points off safety after their 1-0 win at Boreham Wood on Tuesday.

Hessenthaler believes the fact he knows the Eastleigh squad and the manager so well could be an advantage.

He said: “They are doing well. Ben won’t have changed much there but will be doing it his way.

“I know the players there and the way they do things but they know how I will do things, so it will be an interesting game.

“He won’t know my team as well as I know the Eastleigh team but he will have done his homework and is pretty thorough in what he does.”

Whites strengthened their side last week with Bobby-Joe Taylor joining until the end of the season from Bromley while Alfie Pavey also signed from Havant & Waterlooville.

Hessenthaler is still looking to strengthen at the back, however.

He said: “We need perhaps another centre-half as we are a little bit lopsided on the left. We have Moussa Diarra and Kevin Lokko and have ended up playing Mitch Brundle at centre-back for the last couple of games and he has done well.

“Once we’ve done that, I believe we have a real good balance to the squad. “We have 25 cup finals left and we are going to need everybody in the squad.”