| Gillingham 3 v 1 Southampton Carabao Cup Tuesday, 8th August 2023 Kick-off 19:45 |  |
Southampton At Gillingham The Preview Tuesday, 8th Aug 2023 07:45 Saints take part in the 1st round of the League Cup for the first time in 11 years and travel to Gillingham, it will be interesting to see how many changes Russell Martin makes to the side which won at Sheffield Wednesday. Southampton travel to Kent to take on League Two Gillingham with high hopes of progressing in the competition. Gillingham finished 17th in League two last season, coming after being relegated from League One the previous season. They have signed a fair few players in the summer, mostly on free transfers, with so far 7 new arrivals, although 8 went out the door in the other direction. They started the season on Saturday at Stockport County and won with an 86th minute goal from Robbie Mckenzie. They and their fans though will be harbouring hopes of an upset, given that Russell Martin is likely to make a few changes from the side that played at Hillsborough on Friday night.
In goal you would usually expect Alex McCarthy to get a game, but I am not sure he will, Martin will be keen to fine tune the passing game and McCarthy is not comfortable with this way of playing, so perhaps Bazunu will keep his place or maybe even Joe Lumley could come in, although I think it may be a bit too soon after his arrival for that. In defence it could be multiple changes, James Bree in at Right back or even Lewis Payne, Lyanco in the centre and perhaps a game change at left back although Juan Larios and Romain Perraud are coming back for injury, so it could see Thierry Small get a game or even Moussa Djenepo in the side.
It will be interesting who will start in the centre, I can see Will Smallbone being partnered with Shea Charles and then games for two out of Joe Aribo, Stuart Armstrong and Sam Amo- Ameyaw with Sekou Mara brought into the front with perhaps Nathan Tella, Adam Armstrong or Che Adams partnering him. So it could be as many as 8 changes in the side for the game at Priestfield from the starting line up for Sheffield Wednesday.
The manager will have two objectives from this game, the first will be to obviously win it, but the second is perhaps more important for the season, that is to fine tune the players on the fringes to the possession game he has introduced to the club and hopefully create some competition in the squad going forward. This is a good opportunity to do that, because the next few weeks will see some of the more prominent players leave and the need for players to step up to the plate to replace them. Hopefully come 10 pm this evening Russell Martin will have achieved his objectives and we will be in the next round of the competition and made further progress in becoming more comfortable in the passing game that worked so well at Sheffield Wednesday and perhaps get the finishing side of things a little sharper. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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