Stuart Armstrong may miss the clash with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Saturday 17th October after an outbreak of Covid 19 in the Scotland squad.

Stuart Armstrong, Kieran Tierney and Ryan Christie will all miss Scotland's Euro 2020 play-off semi-final against Israel after the former tested positive for Covid-19.

Armstrong was the only member of the squad to return a positive test.

The Saints midfielder tested negative when he joined up with the Scotland squad, but a subsequent UEFA test showed up positive and he will now have to self isolate for 10 days starting from yesterday.

But bizarrely Arsenal defender Tierney and Celtic attacker Christie must self-isolate for a longer period that Armstrong who actually has the virus, they must isolate 14 days from Tuesday after being identified as close contacts.

Technically Armstrong's self isolation will end on Friday 16th, but it is likely that having been in self isolation for 10 days he will not be in the best shape to face Chelsea.

That will be a blow to Saints although with the arrival of Theo Walcott they will have a ready made replacement.

Photo: Action Images

underweststand added 15:39 - Oct 7 Bad luck for Stuart, but perhaps good for Saints, as Ralph was highly critical of the huge workload the Scots manager had placed on Armstrong by playing him in all the games during the last international break. He returned injured and that caused another break in the continuity of our team selection. Few would deny that Armstrong brings a positive dimension to the Saints' set-up, but if he is absent for a longer period..... we may well see much more of Theo Walcott than many had expected after yesterday's long-awaited signing.

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TimSaint added 17:36 - Oct 7 Don't let him play for Scotland again !! When he went to play in the last International Break he got an injury and missed a couple of games and now this time he gets C19. Speedy recovery and come back stronger.
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NYC_Saint added 17:41 - Oct 7 He was negative when he showed up but positive in a second test. Would suggest he got it in Southampton - let's hope we don't have a raft of players unavailable that got it from him and/or gave it to him. Is there a rule for number of covid isolations that lead to a game being postponed -assume there must be something in place?
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wibbersda added 11:42 - Oct 8 Another reason to scrap International breaks.
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