Southampton travel to the home of FC Groningen to play the last of three pre-season friendlies on their tour of Holland tomorrow afternoon.
There has been one departure from the Saints squad since the last match – a 2-1 win over FC Twente – with goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga heading out on loan to Segunda Division team Rayo Vallecano.
Saints are expected to welcome back the Euro 2016 quartet of Fraser Forster, Ryan Bertrand, Steven Davis and Shane Long after manager Claude Puel said that he thinks that they will all play some part in the match this Saturday.
Pre-season has been pretty successful so far for Southampton; they’re unbeaten in all of their games, scoring eight and conceding just the one in the process.
After the FC Groningen game comes two more friendlies for Saints; both at home on Wednesday 3rd August and Sunday 7th August against Espanyol and Athletic Bilbao respectively. Euro 2016 winning duo Cedric Soares and Jose Fonte are expected to return to training before these games with just two weeks left until the start of the season against Watford at St Mary’s.
Without further ado, here’s my predicted line-up for tomorrow’s clash against Virgil van Dijk and Dusan Tadic’s former club.
