Martin: Alkmaar a brilliant test

The UEFA Europa Conference League semi-finalists, who also finished fourth in the Dutch top-flight last season, will visit on Saturday afternoon in what will be Saints' final fixture ahead of the start of the 2023/24 Championship season.

"I'm looking forward to it," said Martin. "There will be some players who play more minutes now and get really ready for the game next Friday, but all we're looking for is the same again – progression, a bit of learning from Tuesday night.

"The games have been really varied in pre-season, in terms of opposition and the problems they pose, which has been great for us because we've not faced the same sort of teams and the same formation, so I think it will help us and take us a step closer and tomorrow hopefully we will see some more good stuff and some real building on the learning that they've already had and particularly a step forward from Tuesday."

On Alkmaar, Martin added: "It's a brilliant test. The games have been chosen because it's not meant to be easy in pre-season. You can end up playing lower-league opposition and winning every single game of pre-season, but it doesn't prepare you, so I think the games we've had will really prepare us well for the level of competition we're going to go into, starting next Friday.

"We've watched some of them, it's been good, they try to play in a certain way, so it's another different test from Bournemouth. The big focus, as always, is on us and what we can do in front of another really good crowd for a friendly. Really looking forward to that on a Saturday afternoon, being at St Mary's, and I'm just really looking forward to seeing what the players can put into practise after Tuesday."

The Saints boss also gave a team news update ahead of tomorrow's game.

"Stuey Armstrong took a knock on Tuesday, so won't be involved, but he should be back training on Monday, and Sékou Mara, Joe Aribo and Jan Bednarek will all be back training but not in time for this game, or not to risk them for this game," he said.

"But, apart from that, the squad will be as it was the other day, albeit Prowsey will be back in the squad which will be nice. He was just more precautionary [on Tuesday], which we spoke about before the game, so he'll come back into the squad.

"Duje Ćaleta-Car won't be involved because his wife is giving birth in Croatia as we speak, so hopefully all of that goes really well and he has some good news for everyone very, very shortly."