Southampton face their fifth and penultimate pre-season friendly on Wednesday evening as they face La Liga side Celta Vigo at St Mary’s.
A positive week-long training camp for Southampton and Mark Hughes in France ended with a positive performance in their last friendly against Dijon.
Another tough test will be provided by Celta Vigo, who finished the 2017/18 season in 13th place in the Spanish top-flight but closer to Europa League qualification than to relegation.
They will certainly pose a threat and a severe test for the Saints defence with a number of exciting attacking talents in their squad.
Each of Iago Aspas, Maxi Gomez, Emre Mor and Pione Sisto are highly respected in the footballing world, and Aspas and Gomez shared 39 league goals between them last season.
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Southampton squad
Alex McCarthy, Cedric, Maya Yoshida, Jack Stephens, Wesley Hoedt, Shane Long, Steven Davis, Charlie Austin, Mohamed Elyounoussi, Oriol Romeu, James Ward-Prowse, Stuart Armstrong, Mario Lemina, Manolo Gabbiadini, Ryan Bertrand, Nathan Redmond, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Sam Gallagher, Matt Targett, Jan Bednarek, Sam McQueen, Josh Sims, Jake Hesketh, Fraser Forster
(Cedric and Maya Yoshida may not be risked after only returning to training this week, whilst Mario Lemina may be left out due to the imminent birth of his child)
Celta Vigo squad
Sergio Alvarez, Hugo Mallo, Andreu Fontas, Nestor Araujo, Okay Jokuslu, Nemanja Radoja, Emre Mor, Maxi Gomez, Iago Aspas, Pione Sisto, Caludio Beauvue, Ruben Blanco, Stanislav Labotka, Robert Mazan, David Junca, Jozabed, Gustavo Cabral, Brais Mendez, Facundo Roncaglia, David Costas, Kevin Vazquez, Juan Hernandez
Main talking points
This game could have seen winger Sofiane Boufal return to St Mary’s to face his parent club, but he has been ruled out for around 8-10 days with an ankle injury.
The Moroccan joined Celta on a season-long loan deal after falling out of favour at Saints and it appears that his future may no longer be in England.
Celta and Saints also met in a pre-season friendly in 2013, and it was the Spanish side that would triumph 4-1 on penalties after the score remained 0-0 after 90 minutes.
In this off-season, Antonio Mohamed has led his new side to a 1-1 and 0-0 draw versus Cordoba and Sporting Braga respectively. They face another Premier League side in Fulham on Saturday after Wednesday’s clash with Saints.
Southampton may not risk Cedric and Maya Yoshida for this game as they only joined up with the squad this week following their World Cup exploits.
Valuable run outs for many of the players available to Mark Hughes should come in this match and in Saturday’s meeting with Bundesliga side Borussia Mochengladbach at St Mary’s.