Mauricio Pellegrino will decide on Friday what part new signing Wesley Hoedt will play in the away game at newly promoted Huddersfield Town.

Speaking at the press conference ahead of the visit to Yorkshire the Saints manager said.

"Wesley is a young player, a young international, that can help us to be stronger in defence, and that is left footed,” said Pellegrino.

"He’s a profile of player we don’t have and can hopefully settle as quick as possible with rest of the team to be available and we will decide tomorrow if we can include him in the squad."

Although Hoedt only arrived on Tuesday and therefore will have little time to train with his new teamates given there was a game on Wednesday and then the first team squad had the following day off, Friday will be Hoedt's first opportunity to integrate properly into the first team group.

However this should not be too much of a problem given that he has trained and been involved with Lazio right up to his move.

From Saints perspective they need him in the team as quickly as possible, although publicly Yoshida and Stephens will not be criticsed, Pellegrino himself must be confirmed about the number of chances gifted in the opening three games, even though they did not score Swansea missed a couple of gilt edged chances and West Ham took two and missed two presented to them from por marking.

Likewise Wolves who again missed a couple of chances as well as scoring two and the number of free chances gifted in our penalty area through poor marking in that opening trio of games is already approaching double figures and that is a major concern for the manager who knows that it is his back up central defenders playing ad the need to get in Hoedt and then Van Dijk will become crucial as the opposition get harder.

Therefore I think that we need to get Hoedt in now, we need his presence in the box and his ability to win the ball in the air.

Photo: Action Images

Sanguin added 22:30 - Aug 24 I would be very surprised to see him start on Saturday. I'm sure he'll make the match day squad though.
1

VancouverSaint added 03:54 - Aug 25 I agree with Sanguin (by the way, do I know you?). Pellegrino will not not start Hoedt Saturday. I expect the same first team that we had versus West Ham. He may be on the bench...but he should have at least 10 days to get into the groove. One another note...Fraser being dropped should send him a message to get more coaching, he's not got it right now.
0

Sanguin added 10:21 - Aug 25 I don't think we know each other, I live in London and don't know too many other Saints fans outside my family!
0

Blogs 31 bloggers

Coventry City Polls