Ronald Koeman is confident that a clear weekend will have given all of Saints’ international players time to recover from their trips.

In particular, Sadio Mane, and Emmanuel Mayuka, who played for Senegal and Zambia respectively on Wednesday night, have had the chance to return to St Mary’s and train with their teammates ahead of tonight’s game against Aston Villa, which is an nice luxury for Saints to have.

Koeman will want every player possible available to him, with fitness doubts over Steven Davis and Morgan Schneiderlin heading into the game at Villa Park.

“Normally it’s always better to have more days because the African players like Mayuka and Sadio have their first training session (on Friday) having played on Wednesday and had to travel,” said Koeman.

“It gives them two days more to rest and recover and with the injuries that we have it gives us two days more and that’s good.

“That’s this week but nothing else.”

In the Premier League, only Chelsea’s international stars clocked up a combined global mileage greater than that of the 15 Saints players who went away, but Koeman is not perturbed by that fact.

“I don’t think so because normally we always have the interest to have everybody back and everybody back in a good physical way,” he reflected.

“For example, Maya Yoshida played two games and that was very good for him because he didn’t play in the last few weeks and that gave him the rhythm that he needs to play. Of course, he had to travel and that’s good.

“You don’t have to look to the distance travelled.

“For us it’s important to have international calls because that’s very good for the experience of the players.”