Saints have just one injury worry ahead of Saturday’s game against title chasing Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium.

After a spate of knocks and injury problems over the last couple of weeks, of the short term absentees only Victor Wanyama remains a doubt with his leg injury.

“Out of all the players that could come back the only one who we still need to assess his fitness ahead of the game is Victor Wanyama,” reported Saints boss Mauricio Pochettino.

Almost certain to start are the English attacking trio of Adam Lallana, Jay Rodriguez and Rickie Lambert, who Pochettino praised once again, with the former compared to Spanish great Andres Iniesta.

“I think the comparison is fair enough,” said Pochettino of Lallana.

“He is the type of player that has the quality of an Iniesta, a Xavi, a Silva, the type of special talent that people enjoy.

“We hope he can keep having amazing performances with our team and it leads him to getting into the English national side.”

He added: “Jay Rodriguez is like any striker, and like Rickie Lambert, that feed off of scoring.

“They need to be scoring and it’s their bread and butter.

“They have both been doing that and we hope they can continue on their very good run.”