Saints fans will have noticed that Nathaniel Clyne has been conspicuos by his absence from the pre season fixtures.
No one could deny that Nathaniel Clyne was one of the better signings of last season, after joining from Crystal Palace for effectively a developement fee, the right back played 34 out of the 38 Premier League fixtures last season and was one of the first names on the team sheet.
However he is yet to appear in any of the Pre season fixtures after picking up an injury on the training ground, just what that injury is has yet to be explained, but it has been serious enough to keep him from playing in the warm up games and perhaps more worryingly it is disrupting his pre season programme and with only two weeks left to the big kick off there must be big questions over whether he has time to attain the fitness levels needed in the Premier League.
But the bigger problem for Saints is just who they will replace him with if he isnt fir for the new season, Frazer Richardson was one of the options last term but he was released in the summer, Calum Chambers has been the player deputising on the pre season tour, however he has yet to play a League game for the club and his only first team action in a competitive game is the six minutes he had after coming on as substitute at Stevenage in the Carling Cup last season. By all acounts he has looked good in pre season but it is a big jump from half paced friendly fixtures to the dod eat dog of the Premier League.
When Clyne was out injured in the second half of the season it was Jack Cork who took his place, Cork was a very good replacement having played in defence earlierin his career and he would perhaps be the preferred option rather than tossing in a youngster, however Im sure that Cork would rather be fighting for his place in the centre of the midfield after the arrival of Victor Wanyama and would feel that if he is used at right back this might not be in his best interests personally.
The question is though, just how serious is Clyne's injury, its being played down at present and although this seems to be Saints way of doing things, it doesnt help with speculation, it makes it easy to put 2 and 2 together and make 25, certainly there were some who wondered why Saints were being linked with expensive right backs earlier in the window and those people will now be pondering whether Clyne's injury is a lot more serious than Saints are letting on