Saints manager Ralph Hasenhuttl has spoken of how his injury list is growing and shows no sign of abating at least in the short term, with several players unlikely to play in the next month or so.
Speaking ahead of the FA Cup Tie against Shrewsbury Town, Ralph Hasenhuttl has revealed that he has a big problem with an injury list that just keeps growing.
Hasenhüttl is already without Danny Ings, Jannik Vestergaard, Oriol Romeu, Nathan Redmond, Moussa Djenepo, Will Smallbone, Michael Obafemi and Mohammed Salisu for tomorrow’s FA Cup third-round tie against Shrewsbury at St Mary’s.
"Not on Tuesday, definitely not, but maybe on Saturday,” he said of potential return dates. "The earliest return will be Ingsy, then Moussa maybe, with Ori and Reddy also in this group.
"Then maybe Jannik, but that can be in February, and Salisu is still longer out with a muscle injury.
"We have some problems at the moment with muscle injuries and there are some reasons I think that are responsible for this.
"We are in a fantastic building here but we cannot use anything (due to Covid-19). We cannot use our cryo chamber, the sauna, the pool, nothing, and we have still the same games with the same intensity.
"We are also limited in eating here together, so everything is not what we normally do in professional football, and there are reasons why we do it normally, so it’s not so surprising in some moments you have more injuries.
"It will be a mixed group tomorrow — some guys who have to play, because there are not a lot of alternatives, and some young guys will have to step in and show what they have shown in the sessions: that they are developing their game and deserve to get a chance to play.”
So whatever his plans for the FA Cup 3rd round tie the Austrian will have to rejig them and consider how he is going to be able to put out a strong side and also be able to not put too many of his senior players at risk of joining the injury list.
As mentioned in some positions he has no backup at all, especially in the centre of defence where he has no real cover for Jack Stephens and Jan Bednarek.
The reason why Saints are having so many injuries is cause for concern especially as most of them appear to be muscle injuries sustained both in games and training, in truth although games have come thick and fast it has been no more than in other seasons at this time of year.
But it could be that issues last season where players had to have an enforced lay off and then the restart followed by a quick recuperation break have thrown many players out of sync with what they have been used to in a fitness regime.
Also as Ralph has pointed out, due to potential Covid 19 issues some of the usual therapy tools used to keep players fit and aid recovery are not able to be used at present.
Al in all it doesn't bode well for the next month or so, we just have to dig in and try to keep going with the hope that if we can win a game or two in the premier League and also the FA Cup then in a month's time we will have players coming back from injury and as we did back in June, burst back into form just at the right time.