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The Focus Starts To Turn On Brighton After International Break.
Monday, 25th Mar 2019 10:44

As the International break draws to an end Saints can now start to focus on the trip to Brighton as those on International duty start to return.

Saints will be hoping that they can pick up where they left off after beating Spurs and keep the momentum going for the visit along the coast to the Amex Stadium to take on Brighton.

They have had a number of players on International duty but with the fixtures completed by Tuesday Ralph Hasenhuttl will see some members of his squad back earlier but should have a full squad to work with by Thursday.

Shane Long of course pulled out of the Ireland squad and is back at St Mary's having treatment, so let's take a look at when the rest will return.

Stuart Armstrong will be one of the first back after Scotland completed their two games on Sunday afternoon, our man started both games, but given the short journey time should have been home on Sunday evening and may join training this morning.

Likewise Jan Bednarek who although in the Polish squad missed both of their games due to illness, whether he stayed with the Poles for their home game against Latvia yesterday or returned home early is unclear, as is the illness which caused him to miss the game.

James Ward Prowse didn't play any part in England's win at Wembley on Friday, but will be hoping for some game time in Montenegro this evening, the likelihood is that he will not return to training on Tuesday but will be given time to rest and return on Wednesday.

Angus Gunn could be in action for the England U21 side just along the coast at Bournemouth against Germany, he played in their first game but if he plays the second then he will be unlikely to join the squad till Thursday.

Pierre Emile Hojbjerg played 90 minutes for Denmark in Kosovo and it was lucky for the Danes he did as he scored the 90th minute equaliser to give them a 2-2 draw, on Tuesday night he will be in Switzerland and he too won't rejoin the Saints squad till Thursday.

Mo Elyounoussi is with the Norway squad and came on as a sub shortly after half time in their 2-1 defeat, they host a local derby against Sweden on Tuesday evening so he is another who won't be back till Thursday.

One player who isn't away is Maya Yoshida who seems to have been excused playing in his countries home friendlies given that if he had played on Tuesday evening he would have struggled to have been back with the squad much before Friday and would have been fatigued from the journey.

This is not ideal preparation although it has to be said that our opponents Brighton have a total of 11 players away with their countries, so could be said to be worse hit given that not only have they more away, but whereas all of ours are only in Europe they have players in Africa.

However only around half of those are considered true first team regulars so it remains to be seen how much it affects them.

Photo: Action Images



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SaintBrock added 20:05 - Mar 26
Equally accomplished sides so home advantage will probably seal it. We'd all love it if Saints could pull this one out of the bag but odds are not good. 1-0 or 1-1 is what we can expect. At least our back five are well rested.
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