With a hectic period seeing them play five games in 15 days Arsenal look likely to rest the bulk of their first choice players for the visit of Saints.
Saints have a great chance to progress in the Capital One Cup at the Emirates on Tuesday evening as they visit an Arsenal side who have just started a run of games that will see them play five times in fifteen days, starting with their visit to Aston Villa a couple of days ago.
They follow that up with the Saints game and then on Saturday host arch rivals Tottenham Hotspur followed by the visit of Galatasaray in the Champions league next Wednesday, if that isnt a tough enough period they then travel to Chelsea four days later.
So Arsene Wenger will definitely have to be doing some prioritising and the Gunners main targets will be The Premier and Champions Leagues before the Capital One Cup.
So Saints could be the beneficiaries of this log jam for Wenger and the Frenchman could put out virtual reserve side with some predicting that there could be ten changes from the side that faced Aston Villa on Saturday.
Of course Arsenal do have a strong squad and when you look at the quality they had on the bench at Villa Park ...
07 Rosicky
09 Podolski
10 Wilshere
13 Ospina
17 Sánchez
24 Abou Diaby
It emphasises that even a second string for Arsenal could survive in the Premier league.
But Ronald Koeman has stated he considers this competition to be important and probably even more so now that the FA Cup has a Champions League place resting on it, this represents a good chance for not only some silverwear for Saints but of qualifying for Europe as well and that has to be a step forward for the club.
With Manchester United already out and another four all Premier League ties on top of this one, it means that there can only be a maximum of 9 Premier clubs left in the last 16 that is assuming that there are no shocks and there could be one or two on the cards.
34 Coquelin