Mario Lemina looks likely to be missing for a second successive game when Saints host Burnley on Saturday, but this is more precautionary than anything more serious.

Mario Lemina was missing from the Saints midfield at Brighton and he now looks set to miss the visit of Burnley on Saturday, however this seems to be more about making sure that Lemina is 100% for the trip to Liverpool two weeks later than anything else.

Lemina might well have been risked against Burnley in another situation, but Saints feel that perhaps they have the midfield options available for the visit of Burnley without Lemina, but that he would be far more needed against Liverpool when it will be a lot more about defending than attacking and with Oriol Romeu only one yellow card from a suspension, the club would not want to be without both for the trip to Anfield so will err on the side of caution.

Also with the International break coming up after Saturday it gives the player an extra fortnight to recover fully and ensure that he doesn't tweak the injury again.

Mauricio Pellegrino will perhaps have to use a more attacking midfield for this game than he might otherwise of, i is looking like he will only have two fit strikers with Charlie Austin also a doubt for the game against the Lancashire side.

That being the case he might want the midfield to have a more attacking look about it, certainly although Burnley have started well away from home with two wins, two draws and only a single defeat out of their first five games, they are not the most prolific side in front of goal and have notched only 6 on their travels with 7 against.

The lions share of those 13 goals came on the opening day at Chelsea and since then Burnley have only scored a single goal in each away game, apart from their last outing at Manchester City that saw them lose 3-0.

So the loss of Lemina for this fixture although a blow is not critical, as it might have been had he played and agravated the injury forcing him to miss the Liverpool trip.

Photo: Action Images

Keesie66 added 09:25 - Nov 1 If a player of Leminas class is fit he should always play, no exception, he has 2 weeks to recover after the Burnley game... btw I dont think we have a more attacking midfielder than Lemina at this stage so not playing him will be wrong..... fit=play .....
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SaintBrock added 09:47 - Nov 1 Interesting that both Lemina an Austin were injured in training and Yoshida gets dropped? Surely Maya didn't clobber them both in a simulated match? If so all strength to him for being thoroughly professional even in training, we need more like him and not the bunch of wimps that usually turn out on a saturday.
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1885_SFC added 10:13 - Nov 1 The cynic in me says Saints are being crafty by saving Lemina for Anfield and putting a highly prized, very classy midfielder in the shop window. And are we REALLY going to play Virgil at Anfield? It will be interesting to see his mindset if we do.
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ashley007 added 23:20 - Nov 1 I REALLY hope we ARE going to play Virgil at Anfield because he's class, he's still our player, we can rub their noses in it, and we still might want to show him off to get £70M out of them next summer! Also, I'd like us to win that game more than most because of all the past feelings between the clubs and mostly because it will be my first away game! :) Oh and back to the point, we'll be fine without Lemina against Burnley too...

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LoisDeem added 10:54 - Nov 2 Lemina a big miss for Burnley. So an extra big team effort from players and fans for this match first and foremost. Then we move on to the sideshow, where we still need the best squad of hearts and minds on and off the pitch -as always. The rest is bowl luck in shy it, FFS!
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