Saints are running the rule over Chelsea midfielder Paul Hughes ahead of today's transfer deadline.

The 23-year-old former England Schools international is available on a Bosman free transfer at the end of the season and would like to link up once again with Glenn Hoddle who gave him his chance at Stamford Bridge.

Hughes is training with Southampton in a bid to recapture form and fitness after missing most of the season with a recurring hamstring injury.

He is struggling to get a look-in among Gianluca Vialli's expensive foreign signings and is looking to re-launch his Premiership career.

Chelsea are resigned to losing him for nothing in May but Saints may try to take him on extended trial until June. Hoddle said: "I can't see Chelsea going for that so I don't envisage anything being done today. If I didn't think the squad was good enough the chairman said that we could scrape the pennies out of the piggy bank. But the bottom line is we are getting it right and we have no need to do that.

"At the moment we are just having a look at Paul and helping him to get fit. He phoned me up and said he was being released by Chelsea so we asked him down to play so we could have a look at him but no more than that.

"Paul is someone I had in the youth team at Chelsea but he has not done a thing for 11 months. He was a very talented youth team player and he knows the game."

Hughes looked sharp as he played the first hour of yesterday's 3-2 defeat by Pompey Reserves at Staplewood as Saints let slip a two-goal lead.

Ironically the game turned on its head after he went off. The Saints midfield lost its bite and snap and the defence became sloppy. Matthew Le Tissier scored a delightful 20-yard chip on nine minutes from an unselfish lay-off from Shayne Bradley who steered in a glancing header on 48 minutes following a cross by Stuart Ripley.

Hughes and Bradley were replaced on the hour by Dani Rodrigues and Imants Bleidelis and within a minute Michael Panopoulis had run across the top of the box to score with a low left-foot drive from 20 yards.

Guy Whittingham then scored twice in three minutes to win it. Phil Warner failed to cut out a pass from Sammy Igoe across the penalty area and Whittingham blasted in from the left of goal and on 68 minutes he drove in from the edge of the area.

Veteran goalkeeper Alan Knight made fine late blocks from Kevin Gibbens and Steve Gray and, bizarrely, Saints defender Mark Graham put the ball just wide of his own goal while playing as a substitute for Pompey who had lost Andy Awford with a minor ankle injury.

Saints lost Luis Boa Morte early on. He went off as a precaution with a slight hamstring but it is not serious while Pompey gave a trial to Newport left winger Tommy Betteridge.

Saints Res: Bevan (Blayney 50), Warner, Lundekvam, Monk, Ripley, P Hughes (Bleidelis 60), Gibbens, Soltvedt, Boa Morte (Gray 24), Le Tissier, Bradley (Rodrigues 60).

Pompey Res: Knight, Hiley, Phillips, Panopoulis, Fenton, Awford (Graham 45), Igoe, Crowe, Allen, Whittingham, Betteridge.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.