Southampton manager Mark Hughes has warned Liverpool that Charlie Austin is rediscovering his best form ahead of this weekend’s meeting between the two sides.

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This is despite Austin not starting any of Saints’ last four games in all competitions and him missing a penalty when he came on as a substitute against Crystal Palace.

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Hughes may be left with no choice but to start Austin this weekend due to Danny Ings being ineligible to play against his parent club and Manolo Gabbiadini being a doubt with a slight hamstring injury.

Hughes has been favoring a 4-4-2 formation in recent matches which means that the likely partnership for the game against Liverpool would be Charlie Austin and Shane Long.

This means that for the Saints to get any kind of result at Anfield, Austin must be at the top of his game and Hughes suggested ahead of the clash that he’s looked very good in training.

During the week leading up to any game you are looking at how people are in training and what their demeanor is and how they are training. Sometimes you can see a little bit of a spark in some players where you sense they are ready to come back into the fold. I have watched his work this week and his application and his work around the pitch and he looks in a better place. He was struggling for form earlier in the season and going out of the team and maybe coming back is maybe a good option for us. We will look at all situations and if I feel it is better we go with certain individuals then what they are doing on the training ground comes into my thinking in terms of who I go with.