A year ago it seemed like every week brought a different injury issue for Claude Puel's squad with several key players missing with long term injuries for the second half of the season, Mauricio Pellegrino seems to be far luckier, at least so far.

Saints manager Mauricio Pellegrino has confirmed that Matt Targett is the only injury issue ahead of the visit of Manchester United on Saturday.

Targett who starred in the U23 sides victory over Stoke City on Monday has picked up an ankle injury and looks set to be out of contention, but apart from the left back it seems that Pellegrino has a full squad to pick from including Charlie Austin who missed last weekends victory at Crystal Palace.

Virgil Van Dijk is in consideration for a start with the manager making his decision in the build up to the match as to whether he will risk starting the Dutchman.

It is good to see that the full squad is available, when Jeremy Pied was injured early last season it started off a chain reaction that seemed to see a new injury virtually every week, some short term but others long term including the likes of Charlie Austin, Matt Targett and then Virgil Van Dijk.

Hopefully Pellegrino will be able to show just why he was so highly rated and chased by several clubs in the summer by utilising the squad, with everyone fit I would suggest the goal scoring issue can be solved from the players that we currently have on the books, it is now an issue of creating chances for our strikers and tactically setting up to be able to do that.

We are stronger now than we were a year ago so there is no reason as to why we should not aim at another top ten finish and a good run in the FA Cup.

Photo: Action Images

1970 added 22:13 - Sep 21 In order to hurt utd we need to get in there faces and have a full 90 minutes of fast passing football the problem is we are not capable of any of this, we could of done with a few games of van dijk and hoedt together before this match, but hey we can still try and beat them i just cant see it coyr
0

LordDZLucan added 09:31 - Sep 22 We need to fit the system that we play around the players that we've got rather than the other way round. To my mind Pellegrino has been too set in his ways so far. He's been trying to play in a certain way without the type of players to suit his system. We know we're missing some creativity in the middle of the park so why not play 2 up front instead and go more direct? We're now overloaded with good centre backs so why not play 3 centre backs?

0

bstokesaint added 13:04 - Sep 22 I agree 1970 that the only way we're going to beat them is by "getting in their faces", but I'm not sure that lots of fast passing is the only way we can do this. It goes without saying we need a decent set of officials, but playing with two upfront and having Shane and Gabbi making lots of running will do the trick in my opinion. I stand by my comment that I can't imagine there's a defender in the PL that would enjoy marking Long. He's not a prolific scorer but he's a grafter and wears defenders down. If you throw in a more capable striker to assist him like Gabbi then there are more scraps to feed off. Otherwise Shane is just wasted. The beauty of stretching them from the start is we could then put someone like Austin on late on and they might not have that same energy to press for late goals.

0

SaintBrock added 19:48 - Sep 22 Apparently Pellegrino will pick his best team for this game in his opinion. I think he is sending us a message there. I don't have a problem with that as he will be the fall guy if it all goes tits up.
0

Blogs 31 bloggers

Southampton Polls