Saints Marching
Fansided

Southampton: Saints will be without key man for meeting with Fulham

By Marc Walker

SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 29: Jan Bednarek of Southampton beats David De Gea of Manchester United with a header and scores a goal to make it 1-0 and celebrates with team-mates Jannik Vestergaard, James Ward-Prowse and Oriol Romeu during the Premier League match between Southampton and Manchester United at St Mary's Stadium on November 29, 2020 in Southampton, England. Sporting stadiums around the UK remain under strict restrictions due to the Coronavirus Pandemic as Government social distancing laws prohibit fans inside venues resulting in games being played behind closed doors. (Photo by Robin Jones/Getty Images)
SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 29: Jan Bednarek of Southampton beats David De Gea of Manchester United with a header and scores a goal to make it 1-0 and celebrates with team-mates Jannik Vestergaard, James Ward-Prowse and Oriol Romeu during the Premier League match between Southampton and Manchester United at St Mary's Stadium on November 29, 2020 in Southampton, England. Sporting stadiums around the UK remain under strict restrictions due to the Coronavirus Pandemic as Government social distancing laws prohibit fans inside venues resulting in games being played behind closed doors. (Photo by Robin Jones/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

Southampton will be without key midfielder Oriol Romeu for their next Premier League fixture against Fulham.

The Spaniard picked up his fifth booking of the 2020/21 season in Saints’ 1-0 loss to Manchester City on Saturday and will serve a one-match ban after reaching this figure before matchday 19/20th January 2021.

Romeu has formed a superb partnership with James Ward-Prowse in the centre of midfield and will be missed at the weekend, but his absence provides a huge opportunity for summer signing Ibrahima Diallo to impress in his first start.

The France youth international has appeared from the substitutes bench six times but those appearances have amounted to just 22 minutes on the pitch so far since he signed from Stade Brest.

Those cameos have been bright but have come mainly in one of the attacking-midfield positions – a role that Ralph Hasenhuttl clearly thinks he can play too.

Southampton’s Spanish midfielder Oriol Romeu (Photo by ADRIAN DENNIS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Southampton’s Spanish midfielder Oriol Romeu (Photo by ADRIAN DENNIS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) /

More from Saints Marching

One thing that Romeu’s one-game ban will highlight is the lack of options for the two central-midfield positions.

Ward-Prowse and Diallo are the only other two players who play centrally as their main positions. This will surely be an area where Saints look for one more signing.

Will Smallbone is capable of playing in a variety of midfield roles but looks to need more time to develop and work on his game before he is ready to start all the time, and he has also had injury issues this season.

The amount of work that midfielders get through in this current Saints setup means that it is unlikely that both Romeu and Ward-Prowse will go the whole 2020/21 campaign without injury problems of their own.

Both have held out so far but cover a huge amount of ground in matches – pressing to win possession back in central areas, supporting the attack and screening the defence in every Premier League fixture they play in.

Next. Saints Power Rankings - Part 6. dark

Home/Southampton FC News