Southampton manager Nathan Jones has hinted that he will play a strong side on Wednesday night when Manchester City visit St Mary's for the Carabao Cup quarter-final.
The Saints currently sit bottom of the Premier League, three points adrift from safety. Despite their worries in the league, the south coast club opted to field a strong starting line-up on Saturday as they defeated Crystal Palace 2-1 in the FA Cup third round.
Ahead of yet another cup competition on Wednesday night against the Blues, Jones claimed that he would be sticking with a strong XI for the visit of Pep Guardiola's men. Speaking to Hampshire Live on Monday, the ex-Luton Town boss said: "Not in terms of Armel [Bella-Kotchap] or Stuart Armstrong but the ones that we looked after on the weekend because of minutes will come back.
ALSO READ: Foden showed new side to his game vs Chelsea
"So we'll be able to call on one or two of those but in terms of Stuart Armstrong, Stuart has been playing through injury for a while so we've only been able to get 15/20 minutes out of him. But to be fair, we can't keep doing that.
"It puts pressure on Stuart and puts pressure on me to bring him on so it's something we're not going to do anymore. I think every game is huge at the minute, going into Saturday we had huge selections.
"We had to respect the competition and play a team capable of winning the game and have one eye on Wednesday. It’s exactly the same on Wednesday because again you need to respect the competition, you definitely respect the opposition so we’ve got to be competitive but also keep one eye on Saturday."
At the weekend, Southampton make the long trip to Liverpool to take on Everton. Frank Lampard's men also currently sit in the relegation zone, three points ahead of the Saints.
When asked directly about the threat which City pose this midweek, Jones added: "It's probably the toughest test you can possibly have, they are one of the best in the world, but it's the quarter-finals of a cup so you know it's a shoot-out.
"It's winner takes all so we need a strong home performance. We've got a real strong performance on the weekend, so hopefully we can back that up."
READ NEXT:
