Saints will alter their style of play a little as Shane Long slots in up top to replace the suspended Graziano Pellet.

Shane Long looks set to play in a striking role at the head of the team as Saints head to Manchester City on Saturday. Long is a different player than Pelle but he has qualities that will cause City problems.

Saints will play a more direct counter attacking game, with Long augmented with Sadie Mane will look to run at the City defence with pace on the break.

Long's speed over 20 yards is well known and he will be looking to catch the City defence napping especially if Joe Hart fails to pass muster and they have their reserve keeper in.

Long can make defenders look over their shoulder and not play their normal games with the worry that they might get caught on the ball and Ronald Koeman will be hoping that helps Saints towards getting their first point at the Etihad since returning to the Premier League 3 years ago

"It's a loss, because he's a player who normally always starts, he's the top scorer of the team, but we have the experience of last season when Graziano was not starting, for example against Chelsea, that we have other players, but different players in qualities, because nobody is in the same style as Graziano,” the Saints boss told youtube.com/southamptonfc.

“That means that we can play a little bit different. We know with Shane, Sadio, other players in front, they have different qualities and that's to tell the boys that maybe in some circumstances in the game that we have to play a little bit different than normally.”

"Yes, very good, because they are different."

“They are more fast and maybe more trying to do the movements behind the defenders.

“I remember that John Terry was mentioning after the Chelsea game how tough it was to play against Shane Long and that was for Shane a big compliment and we expect the same.”

Photo: Action Images

uaesaint added 08:41 - Nov 27 Good not a bad thing if you watched the Liverpool game all goals came from fast wing play and runing at them not the hold up play when pella is playing if mane and tadish are on the game then may be a good game
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saintmark1976 added 10:09 - Nov 27 Graziano Pellet, who? I know we like a striker who can shoot but that is ridiculous!
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halftimeorange added 12:53 - Nov 27 After last week's lame effort we probably needed to try something different against City. I would like to see Romeu and Wanyama start and then we might be able to stifle through balls to Aguero. Tadic really needs to perform for us to have any chance as we don't have too much creativity.
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