Saints have suffered further injury woe after it was confirmed that Victor Wanyama is set for an extended spell on the sidelines.

Mauricio Pochettino has reported that the midfielder suffered a hairline fracture in his leg during the game against Aston Villa.

The Saints boss refused to put an exact timescale on his recovery but he is unlikely to feature again this year.

Pochettino is facing mounting injury problems ahead of the visit of Manchester City to St Mary's tomorrow.

Nathaniel Clyne is also out after hobbling off in the Villa game.

He joins Wanyama, Artur Boruc, Kelvin Davis, Morgan Schneiderlin, Danny Fox and Guly do Prado in being unavailable for the game.

Jose Fonte is only rated as touch and go to be fit and will face a late fitness test.

The one crumb of comfort is the return of Gaston Ramirez who has been sidelined by a heavy cold.

Pochettino said: "It’s clear that injuries are the worst aspect of football. Nobody wants to be injured and it’s the most negative aspect and we have been unlucky of late with all these injuries coming more or less at the same time.

"We need to be strong, we need to keep on believing, keep on thinking we can be strong and understand these things can happen in football. That’s normal.

"Right now we are going through that moment and we just need to keep on looking forward positively into the future."