Ronald Koeman will today discover whether he will require surgery on his injured Achilles that would likely rule him out of attending Sunday’s Premier League opener at Newcastle.

The Saints manager sustained the injury in training at the GelreDome on Wednesday, and was at last night’s win against Vitesse on crutches and wearing a protective boot.

Koeman suffered the injury after passing a ball and stepping back awkwardly.

His injury will be fully assessed today and he could quickly go under the knife to repair the damage if a specialist deems it necessary.

If he requires surgery it is likely to happen quickly enough to rule him out of the long trip to Newcastle, which will leave his brother Erwin in charge.

Saints will be in safe hands with Erwin also having a wealth of top level playing and management experienced, and he even took over pre and post-match press duties last night with Ronald unable to make it up the stairs to the conduct his press conference.

When asked about Ronald’s injury following the 2-0 win over Vitesse, which put Siants through to the Europa League play-off round, Erwin said: “He’s fine.

“He knows he has already some problems with his Achilles and if you are involved in a training session then this can happen what happened.

“Ok, we will hear tomorrow what happened and we will hear tomorrow if he is on Sunday on the bench or not.

“Tomorrow morning he goes to hospital and then they will decide what to do.”