Saints are facing an untimely injury crisis following tonight's 1-0 defeat at the hands of Arsenal.

Ronald Koeman is set to be without Morgan Schneiderlin, Jack Cork and Toby Alderweireld for the visit of Manchester United on Monday.

Schneiderlin was forced off against Man City with an injury that will rule him out at least until the trip to Burnley.

Cork, who recovered from illness in time to replace Schneiderlin for the game at the Emirates, had to hobble off during the first half with an ankle problem that saw him leave the ground in a protective boot.

And Alderweireld, who on both occasions deputised in central midfield, will be missing for an absolute minimum of two weeks. He limped off with a hamstring problem that left Saints down to ten men having already used all three subs, a problem Arsenal capitalised on to score a late winner through Alexis Sanchez to inflict a second straight defeat on Saints.

Koeman shrugged: “Morgan we have to wait.

“It’s a little bit like the same injury as when he came back from international duty.

“I don’t think now that he will be fit for next Monday, but maybe the weekend after. We have to wait.

“Jack is the same ankle he told me as last season.

“Toby we have to wait but hamstring always is minimum two weeks. When it’s a real hamstring injury it’s longer.

“Ok, I can’t change that, that’s football.”

Dusan Tadic was also taken off after an hour having taken a knock, but that is not serious.

The trio of Schneiderlin, Cork and Alderweireld join long term absentees Jay Rodriguez and James Ward-Prowse in the treatment room while another central midfield option, Victor Wanyama, is walking a tightrope after collecting a fourth yellow card of the season.

Koeman was not blaming Arsenal for any of the problems, but again hit out at the fixture schedule for December which has so angered him as he believes it benefits the established big clubs who have large squads of international players to pick from.

“It’s not about injuries, you see that in all teams,” he said.

“If you watch the games a lot of players are injured or get injuries because of the programme every player has to do and that’s the problem.

“A kick is the risk in football but a lot of footballers have hamstring problems because that’s about the number of games they have to play and that’s the question.

“OK, Southampton or other teams we don’t have the number of players Arsenal have.

“You see what they have on the bench, we don’t have that.

“That’s the problem for lower teams with these schedules in December.”

Koeman was again asked whether the current problems heighten the need to strength in January and he replied: “It’s a question not for today but for January.

“We like to be competitive until the end of the season and there is the Asia Cup in January for Yoshida and the Africa Cup in January for Mane.

“I spoke already with Les Reed about that situation and we are looking and with this kind of injuries maybe we have to do something.”