When the 18 to face Leicester City was announced last night there were three notable absentees from the squad.
Mark Hughes is known as a manager who will accept nothing less than 100% commitment from his players and will not tolerate disruptive influences in his squad, last night at Leicester City saw three players not even making the bench, who are coincidentally three of our most expensive signings.
For Guido Carrillo this was the third game in a row he has not been on the bench, in fairness to him although he has not yet scored for the club he did play vital parts in games prior to Hughes arrival and the return of Charlie Austin from injury has put him down the pecking order.
But the absence of Mario Lemina and Sofiane Boufal, especially Lemina was puzzling.
Both were on the bench against Chelsea but did not get on the field, both started in Hughes first game in charge in the cup win at Wigan and Lemina started against WEst ham in the next game with Boufal playing the last 25 minutes as a sub after the damage was done.
Since then neither has played a single minute out of the last three games.
Lemina is a strange situation, he missed the Arsenal game supposedly through illness, was on the bench against Chelsea but missing again last night in a game when you would have thought that he would have been needed on the bench as cover.
But Hughes opted for Steven Davis who had not played for two months prior to the trip to the King Power, I can understand why Davis would be included for his leadership qualities, but Lemina should be our best player this season, he has shown in games his undoubted talents, so why has he spent so much time on the bench and at times not even got off it or for that matter as of last night even on it ?
Certainly it was rumoured that he fell out with Pellegrino back in November over an argument about whether he was fit to face Everton or not and that seemed to be the start of his issues at the club.
Now he seems to have fallen foul of Mark Hughes which is sad to hear as we could sorely use his talents.
Boufal is not so strange, again he is capable of some great things, but too often he does not produce an end product, his absence is not so puzzling.
But the fact remains that all three have been and in the case of Carrillo continues to be our record signings, costing around £55 million between them, that is a big amount to spend for Saints and so far value has not been achieved, although in fairness to all three of them, a big part of that has been the formations and tactics that the managers they have played under have employed.
Will any of them play any further part in this season ? At this time it looks highly unlikely injuries aside.