Southampton manager Russell Martin has been talking to the press about his squad for the visit of Manchester United to St Mary's, so what has the Saints boss been saying and who is in and out.

One absentee will of course be Gavin Bazunu, but the goalkeeper aside, unless the manager is hiding something, then it seems the only other casualty is Kamaldeen Sulemana and as he hasn't featured since early in the pre season, this is not going to be a major problem.

Everyone else is apparently fit and raring to go, so that means potential places in the matchday squad for new signings Maxwel Cornet and Ryan Fraser, both of whom were signed too late to take part in the game against Brentford and whisper it Ross Stewart is also fit!

The Daily Echo reporting from his pre match press conference have quoted him as this.

"Maxwel's in the squad. Everyone is pretty much fit now apart from Kamaldeen.

"Kamaldeen is very, very close to being fit. We have a big squad. It's going to be a lot of selection dilemmas to get into the squad, let alone the starting XI.

"(We have to overcome that) by making sure the door is always open for them and that they train well with the team.

"We will try and adapt and be flexible with the training to make sure we can account for all the numbers.

"But there will be days where they'll be very frustrated and we have to just train with the squad. Otherwise, it's just too many."

On Brereton Diaz, Martin added: "He's fine. It's not an injury, so I guess the coach has his own reasons, but it's not my job to ring the Chile coach and find out why Ben comes off."

The team news at 11.15am on Saturday is going to be very interesting, with so many players available Martin is spoiled for choice and can have no complaints about not having the squad.

Now it is down to him to make the right selections, whether he can do that or not is going to be the key question, one that will be answered and is perhaps the key to whether he will be the man to take this team much further.

Photo: Action Images

IanRC added 15:20 - Sep 12 So will he at last drop Jack and give ABK a proper chance. Good to hear Ross is fit.
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NYC_Saint added 17:06 - Sep 12 "It's going to be a lot of selection dilemmas to get into the squad, let alone the starting XI." And that dilemma is one made that much harder with only 9 outfield places to fill after Stephens occupies his floating CB/LB/CDM/"anywhere because he's such good footballer" role. Let's go all in on a double barreled CB pairing of ABK and THB.
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highfield49 added 18:23 - Sep 12 Frustration is creeping in for me, if Stephens and Smallbone are in the starting line up, in my opinion, RM has bottled it.
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saint22 added 18:39 - Sep 12 @ highfield 1000% correct I am not sure they should even be on the bench
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redwight added 19:31 - Sep 12 I can't help but think that a smaller squad of higher quality would have served us better. I know unloading unwanted players is not always straightforward, but quality rather than quantity wins every time IMO.
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