Southampton captain José Fonte will not be fit for tomorrow night’s Capital One Cup quarter-final against Liverpool, Ronald Koeman has confirmed.
Fonte had to be substituted during the first half of Saturday’s 3-1 defeat at Manchester City with a cut to his knee, and Koeman revealed he would not be available before Saturday’s Barclays Premier League home game against Aston Villa.
"José is not fit for tomorrow,” the Saints manager told youtube.com/southamptonfc.
“He still has the cut above his knee with the stitches and we are hopeful that he can play this Saturday, but tomorrow is too early.
“There are no other updates about injuries – the same team, the same squad probably for tomorrow's game.”
Liverpool’s visit is the second of three games in eight days, but Koeman believes there is no necessity to rotate his squad.
"I think it's not so difficult about tomorrow's game, because you play against a big team,” he said.
“It's a lot of attention to everybody and everybody likes to be involved in that game and that's ok, we know we are physically well, we don't have a lot of injuries and we have competition, and ok we are prepared for tomorrow.”