Saints returned from the summer break yesterday and one notable absentee was striker Shane Long, prompting speculation that now his contract has ended his time at St Mary's might be at an end.
Other media sources have made much of this saying that Shane Long has not been retained by the club nor has he been offered a new deal and use his absence at Staplewood yesterday as proof of that.
However it may not be as clean cut as that, Long's contract with the club ends today and from that perspective having not signed a new one yet, he would not be expected to turn up, if for nothing else but insurance reasons, Long would have been expected to take part in medical assessments and there would be no point in doing that until his future was decided, also there is the risk that he could injure himself and that could have prejudiced his chances of finding a new club if that is the route that is taken.
So yesterday would be a day off for Shane Long despite still technically being in contract.
But he wasn't the only one missing from training, as mentioned yesterday was all about assessments and these have been staggered for time purposes.
Aside from the injured Romain Perraud &Tino Livramento those in yesterday were four goalkeepers
Mateusz Lis, Gavin Bazunu, Alex McCarthy & Willy Caballero.
Defenders
Armel Bella-Kotchap, Dynel Simeu, Lyanco, Jack Stephens, Kyle Walker-Peters
Midfielders
Oriol Romeu, Ibrahima Diallo, Nathan Tella.
These were also joined by youngsters Kamari Doyle & Dominic Ballard.
Alongside Long on the absentee list were;
Mohammed Salisu, Yan Valery, Nathan Redmond, Adam Armstrong, Theo Walcott.
Presumably they will return either today or tomorrow.
The International players in the squad will be given an extra 10 days off and will join the team when they travel to Austria for the training camp, these are:
Jan Bednarek, James Ward-Prowse, Stuart Armstrong, Moussa Djenepo, Will Smallbone, Moi Elyounoussi, Che Adams.
The real issue in terms of pre season training though is that so far Ralph Hasenhuttl has lost three coaches from last season and so far replaced them with only one Ruben Selles.
Now this week will not seen much done on the training ground other than basic drills and warms ups etc aimed at getting the muscles moving again, but next week preparation will begin in earnest, as it stands at present we do not have enough coaching staff.