Southampton Injury Crisis Worsens With Romeu Out For The Season

Oriol Romeu is the latest long term casualty as Ralph Hasenhuttl revealed that Oriol Romeu will now miss the end of the season after injuring his ankle on Leeds United's dangerous pitch on Tuesday evening.

Anyone who watched the game on at Elland Road on Tuesday evening on the television would have noticed the state of the pitch, from the very start players were falling over with no one around them and it was like a skating rink at times with players unable to stop and their feet slipping as they tried to break into a sprint.

The surface of the pitch was not stable and that meant it gave way as players tried to put any weight on it, modern pitches have little in the way of roots and this appeared to be the case for the Elland Road pitch more than normal, it appeared that it was barely more than an inch of turf laid on a hard surface, every tackle saw great divots and the surface was not stable in any way shape or form

It can be said it was the same for both sides and although I don't think that the pitch affected the eventual result, to be blunt it was dangerous and that has been proven to be the case as it has been revealed that Oriol Romeu will now miss the rest of the season after damaging his ankle when the pitch gave way as he attempted to pass the ball.

Now he has had to have surgery on the ankle and is likely to miss the rest of the season, a big blow for Saints to lose one of their most influential players this season and his natural replacement Ibrahima Diallo also sidelined for the foreseeable future..

Ralph had this to say:

Oriol Romeu's season is over. Surgery means months out after he fractures his ankle. It will take maybe three months that he is out,"

But the injury problems haven't stopped there as not only have Saints lost Romeu for the foreseeable future but they will be without Takumi Minamino who has a muscle injury as Ralph revealed:

"And Taki Minamino is out too for the weekend. He has a slight muscle injury. That leaves us with Walker-Peters, Diallo, Walcott and also Will Smallbone and Michael Obafemi also injured."

So the injury crisis has just got a lot worse for Saints, although the one hope is that the Austrian manager is usually a little coy about who is fit and who isn't fit, so perhaps with 3 days to go before the game at Goodison Park , Minamino might be ready to return and maybe one of the trio of Diallo, Walker Peters & Walcott might be nearing a comeback.

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