Bednarek to serve one-match suspension

Shown a fifth yellow card of the season in last weekend's win over Millwall, the Poland international will now serve a one-match ban.

The 27-year-old's absence will force Russell Martin into a change against The Baggies having named an unchanged starting XI in the last two outings, something the Saints boss feels relaxed about.

"I'm disappointed [Jan is out] as he's been such a big player for us, but whenever anyone misses a game for any reason it’s an opportunity for another player.

"Mason [Holgate] came in against Preston and did very, very well for Taylor [Harwood-Bellis] and if he comes back in tomorrow, whether it’s him or Shea [Charles] or whoever, they’ll have another opportunity to do very, very well. I'm really confident whoever steps in will be fine. We're at a point now where I really believe if one or two need to come out we can fill that gap pretty seamlessly and smoothly."

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."