Due to suspension, defender Jan Bednarek will not play in Saturday’s Sky Bet Championship match against West Brom.
The Poland international will now serve a one-match suspension after receiving his fifth yellow card of the year during last weekend’s victory against Millwall.
Russell Martin, the manager of the Saints, is at ease with the decision to start an unchanged starting lineup against The Baggies due to the 27-year-old’s absence.
“Jan has been a huge contributor to our team, so I’m sad to see him go, but each time a player misses a game, it opens up a spot for another guy.
“Taylor [Harwood-Bellis] benefited greatly from Mason [Holgate]’s performance against Preston. If he returns tomorrow, either Mason or Shea [Charles] or whomever else plays, they’ll have another chance to perform really well. I have complete faith that whoever takes over will succeed. We’ve reached a stage where, in my opinion, we can easily and elegantly replace the void left by one or two leaving.”
One positive for the Saints boss ahead of the weekend is the potential inclusion of summer signing Ross Stewart, who could make his debut having returned from injury with 45 minutes for the Under-21s a week ago.
“He’ll be involved tomorrow,” Martin said. “Expectation early on because of how long he’s been out shouldn’t be too big, he’ll feel his way in with us and he’s not had a huge amount of time on the grass, so this is probably his first full week training with the team and understanding the technical detail.
“We’ll get him on the pitch at some point tomorrow possibly, possibly not, it depends on the state of the game but to have him back in the squad and then build him up over the international break is a nice period for us to really get some work into him so he can be a big player for us moving forward.”