In all the transfer shenanigans of the last few days, Saints get back to playing football matches.

Saints take on RB Leipzig this evening a little over six weeks since they played their final Premier League game of last season at Manchester City, usually Saints would return after a six week break and then start playing the first friendly matches a couple of weeks later, but with a Europa League match coming up and the Premier season starting a week earlier than usual, this years pre season is somewhat shorter than usual and with a lot more packed in.

For this first game though Koeman is unlikely to put out anywhere near his strongest side, he knows that he will need to use the squad a lot more this year, especially if we get to the Europa League group stages and he will want to find out who amongst the younger players has stepped up their game.

Although he has taken all his squad including those who were away on International duty, he will rely on youth this evening, although on Saturday at Red Bull Salzburg he will have the chance to use two sides in the two games we will play in the mini tournament.

Speaking to the Daily Echo Koeman confirmed as much.

“Yes, they will get opportunities to play. We play a friendly on Wednesday and most of them will be part of that friendly, because the international players who start today won't be involved in the match on Wednesday “ They get the opportunity to show their qualities. Finally, when we go to Holland we'll bring the squad down in numbers to travel than we do normally tomorrow, because we take 30, 31 players to Austria.”

RB Leipzig are a German second division club who finished just outside the play offs last season so will present a reasonable challenge, in their campaign last season they scored 39 and conceded 31 in the 34 match season suggesting they are a side that keep things tight.

Ronald Koeman will not be looking to the result to tell him much from this game, but he will be running an eye over the young side to see who might just be the surprise package of the season.

Photo: Action Images via Reuters

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