Jose Fonte has been ruled out of tomorrow night’s Capital One Cup quarter-final with Liverpool at St Mary’s.

The Saints captain was forced off during the first half of Saturday 3-1 defeat at Manchester City with a cut knee problem.

Saints had hoped he would be fit to face the Reds for a place in the last four of the League Cup, but he won’t quite be ready.

Ronald Koeman confirmed: “Jose Fonte is not available for tomorrow.

“We have good hope that he will be fit for the Saturday game. That is a good option, not tomorrow.

“No other injuries.”

Koeman is hoping his team will have no repeat of the error strewn start to the game at the Etihad Stadium which cost them dearly.

“We like to play and we like to build up and most of the time it’s depending if you keep the ball and you lose too easy and you do so many mistakes what we did in the first 20 minutes against City there is no tactical reasons, no question about players who start or don’t start,” said the Saints boss.

“You can’t lose those balls if you like to play football from the back.

“We know Liverpool likes to press and if you beat the press then you have a lot of options and possibilities and we showed that second half against City and that’s all about ourselves.

“The individual qualities of these players in big teams will punish you for that.

“It wasn’t really City but all our fault in the first 20 minutes because it was very poor.”