Southampton: Saints preparing for second pre-season friendly on Tuesday

Southampton will play their second pre-season friendly of 2020/21 when they take on Championship side Coventry City on Tuesday.

According to a report from Coventry Live, Saints will host the Sky Blues at St Mary’s just three days on from beating Swansea City 7-1 on the South Coast.

Coventry gained promotion to the second-tier in 2019/20 after finishing as champions in League One and will provide another good test for Ralph Hasenhuttl’s side.

Saints are likely to be without six first-team players for their second warm-up game with international fixtures in the Nations League coming up in the next week.

Firstly, Danny Ings and James Ward-Prowse are due to join up with England ahead of matches against Iceland next Saturday and then Denmark the following Tuesday.

Both will be hoping to make their second and third appearances for the Gareth Southgate’s senior side before joining up with Saints once again ahead of the Premier League’s opening weekend.

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Shane Long, Jan Bednarek and Stuart Armstrong will join the Republic of Ireland, Poland and Scotland respectively for their fixtures too, whilst Jannik Vestergaard is part of Denmark’s squad and could play against Ings and Ward-Prowse a week on Tuesday.

These six players being away could mean game time for more Saints youngsters against Coventry or could potentially see other senior players play more minutes.

What is clear is that Saints will be wanting to continue their form from their opening friendly against Swansea.

Whilst pre-season football cannot give a total reflection of what is to come, some very promising attacking play was seen as seven goals were put past the Swansea goalkeeper.

Highlights from the game show that Nathan Redmond, Danny Ings and Che Adams were all heavily involved and all got themselves on the scoresheet. James Ward-Prowse looked to be in top form too whilst dictating play and driving forward and Ryan Bertrand was influential down the left.

Saints kick off their domestic season with an away trip to Crystal Palace on Saturday 12th September.