Southampton supporters were worried when they heard that Tino Livramento had withdrawn from the England U21 squad due to an unspecified injury, but the ex Chelsea player should be fit to travel to Norwich on Saturday.
Tino Livramento has played all but 4 minutes of Saints Premier League campaign so far, of the 11 games played so far the only action he has missed was the final few minutes of the 0-0 draw at Manchester City as Ralph Hasenhuttl brought on fresh legs and broke the flow of the game up by making the substitution.
Aside from that Livramento has played a full part with his exciting surges down the wing a feature of why he has broken into the first team and has also been tipped to be pushing for a full England cap very soon.
With all the plaudits being thrown his way by pundits and Saints supporters alike, it has been easy to forget just how young he is, he only turned 19 last Friday and indeed the fact that he had never played a senior competitive game in his career until the opening day of this season at Everton.
When young players start full time at professional clubs at 16 their bodies are not yet fully developed and aren't ready for the rigours of a full time training resume to the fitness levels demanded in the Premier League, it can take over two years to build up a core fitness level that can slowly but surely condition their bodies to be able to take the training schedule needed.
Of course every individual is different and certain types of player do not need the intensity levels of others, but in general their is a school of thought that in the high octane Premier League for those whose game relies on speed their could be a shelf life of around 10-12 years tops and that is if they have done the basics right at the beginning.
That theory is backed up by those players over the years that have broken into the Premier League at an early age and who were a shadow of their former selves , in the past the likes of Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen and more recently Wayne Rooney and perhaps Luke Shaw who after an initial burst found it hard to stay fit, of course there are exceptions such as Christian Renaldo,, but in general the kids that break into the first team at 17/18 don't maintain their fitness and form past 28-30 they are burnt out.
So this could be the reason that Tino Livramento withdrew from the England U21 squad, Saints would be well aware that he has gone from a situation where for the past two years at Chelsea he has been an academy squad member where last season he played 20 games in the Premier League 2 and a less strenuous training regime, to suddenly playing 11 straight games in the Premier League plus another 3 games for England U21's.
So I would suspect that he is not so much injured but just needs a rest, certainly against Aston Villa last time out he looked a little jaded in the second half, in the first he was his usual high octane self, but in the second half he perhaps had the worst 45 minutes of his time at Saints, in fairness his worst 45 is still fairly decent.
I think that Saints will have had a word with the England coaching set up and reached an agreement with them that the player himself needed a break after such a burst of competitive action after having none at all up to 3 months ago.
We start a punishing programme now in the Premier League where in six weeks we will play 10 games, starting with Norwich on Saturday and ending with Newcastle on 2nd January, this is absurd, a game on average every 4 days, the clubs in Europe and/or the League cup will play 3 more.
The medical staff will know that if we are not careful we could permanently damage his muscles and in the long term he would struggle.
This being the case Tino should be fit to face Norwich City I would hope that Saints have reached an agreement that Tino needs the rest and that being the case won't be subject to any of the rules in place that say if a player withdraws from an International squad through injury he can't play for his club on the following weekend.
So we should look forward to seeing a refreshed Tino Livramento surging down the right flank up at Carrow Road, but even if he doesn't play such is our strength in depth these days , Kyle Walker Peters is a more than adequate replacement.