Mark Hughes has confirmed that Sofiane Boufal has been sent to train with the club’s under-23s following a bust-up in the league defeat to Chelsea.

The Moroccan international, who joined Saints for £16m, was at the centre of a flare-up after he reportedly refused to warm-up when on the subs bench against the Blues, with tempers then fraying in the dressing room.

Hughes insisted that Boufal has admitted his mistake, but the manager feels it better for the time being if he trains away from the first team.

He said: “Unfortunately Sofi made a mistake which he acknowledged and has acknowledged to me since.

“At the moment he is training with the under-23s and he’s missed a few days of training because he was ill.

“Given where we are at the moment he is best served training with a different group to make people aware that the situation we found ourselves in this wasn’t what should have happened.

“He understands that now and probably needs to build a little bit of trust with his own teammates and that’s the process we’re working towards.”

When asked whether he could get back into the squad before the end of the season Hughes added: “Possibly. He won’t be involved this weekend and we will have to wait and see.”

Jack Stephens returns from suspensions but another player who definitely won’t be involved in Saturday’s game against Bournemouth is Steven Davis.

Hughes desperately wants to be able to call upon the experience of the Northern Ireland captain but has been denied by injury, with Davis only able to manage a cameo appearance off the bench against Leicester before his Achilles problem flared up again.

Saints now face the possibility of having to rule him out for the remainder of the campaign.

“We welcome back Jack Stephens from his suspension so we have got more options there,” reported Hughes.

“Steven Davis is unfortunately struggling with his Achilles again and it’s a little bit of an irritant to him and to us because he has a couple of days of training and it flares up again.

“We will have to see where we go with it and we’ve had him seen and had scans done and it’s shown a little bit of damage in the Achilles and it might be we have to shut him down until next season.

“That decision hasn’t been made definitively yet but we are getting close.”