Southampton boss Russell Martin is relishing the problem of going through high-flying Chelsea regardless of their sluggish begin within the Premier League this season.
After promotion again to the top-flight this time period, Southampton’s fundamental goal is to keep away from fast relegation to the Championship. At the moment, the Saints are backside of the league having solely amassed 5 factors from their first 13 matches.
Southampton’s solely league win this time period got here in opposition to Everton in a slender 1-0 victory final month at St. Mary’s.
Their subsequent check comes in opposition to , who’ve gained their final three matches in all competitions, and with Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Flynn Downes and Tyler Dibling all suspended, in addition to Lesley Ugochukwu out (ineligible to face his mum or dad membership) and Aaron Ramsdale persevering with his restoration from damage, Southampton are large underdogs to say even a degree on Wednesday evening.
“We now have to simply accept we’re lacking some key gamers however we even have loads of belief within the gamers we now have,” admitted Martin. “We now have massive belief within the form we will play as a result of we have carried out it earlier than.
“We now have to adapt, we now have to tweak, with out shedding what we imagine in. I am wanting ahead to seeing how we address that.”
Martin is happy at the opportunity of having to seek out various options to attempt to beat probably the most in-form groups within the league. They may take confidence into Wednesday’s encounter after solely narrowly shedding 3-2 to league leaders Liverpool final month.
“It is fairly thrilling attempting to work out the easiest way to accommodate these suspensions and accidents in the identical means once we knew others had been going to come back out.”
On Chelsea, Martin continued: “They’re actually beginning to click on into gear and to get into circulation a bit. In opposition to Aston Villa on the weekend, they had been glorious, actually excellent.
“They’ve some high gamers but it surely’s the way you get them gamers on the ball and within the areas the place you need to. They’ll do their stuff they usually do it recurrently.”