Saints have been rocked by news that midfielder Simon Gillett has been ruled out for the rest of the season with a cartilage injury sustained in training.

Gillett, 23, had finally begun to fulfil his early promise with a series of good performances in the centre of midfield and had started the last 8 games, so this will be a disruption to Mark Wotte’s plans, particularly with a run of 4 games in 10 days starting with Saturday’s must-win clash with Charlton Athletic.

Wotte does have other options, with Morgan Schneiderlin now fully fit again after a series of niggling injuries that have blighted him all season, and the experienced Paul Wotton also available.

Some slightly more irrelevant injury news reveals that Anthony Pulis has also been ruled out for the rest of the season with a stress fracture of the foot, presumably acquired through the shock of actually kicking a ball, having not even featured for the reserves since February 16th.

Saints head to Burnley tomorrow looking to atone for Monday night’s defeat at Crystal Palace.

In the three meetings at Turf Moor since our relegation, we’ve won twice and drawn once, but that good record will be put to a stern test tomorrow afternoon as Burnley are currently flying high in the Championship table. With ten wins from their 22 games, they currently sit in 4th place, six points behind Reading and just ahead of Sheffield United, who they beat 3-2 last week.

Typically, Burnley have made a good start to the season in the Championship only to fall away around this time of the year, and our 3-2 win last season was the beginning of their familiar slide down the table. They ended in 13th place, which was fairly comfortable, but finished only ten points ahead of relegated Leicester City, which goes to show how close the bottom half of the Championship was last season.

They have reserved their best form for in front of their own fans this season, unlike us, and have only lost once on home soil, which was their first home game of the season - a 3-0 defeat against Ipswich. Since then, they’ve won 6 and drawn 4, scoring 17 goals in the process.

If we’re to get anything from the game, we’re going to have to make sure we defend properly from set-pieces, something we failed to do on Monday night for Craig Beattie’s goal which was probably the strike that knocked the stuffing out of us.

Burnley are sweating on the fitness of Michael Duff and Chris McCann, but otherwise manager Owen Coyle has a full squad to choose from. Their goals have mostly been shared between Martin Paterson (signed from Scunthorpe in the summer), Robbie Blake and former Manchester United winger Chris Eagles. They are the key players to look out for tomorrow.

For Saints, Morgan Schneiderlin is expected to come back into the side, possibly in place of Alex Pearce with Jack Cork moving into the centre of defence alongside Chris Perry. The whereabouts of Jason Euell seems to be a bit of a mystery after he was expected to come straight back into the fold after serving his three-match ban, and Anthony Pulis may be on the bench for the first time after recovering from a broken foot.

Saints have signed Anthony Pulis on a free transfer from Stoke City.

The 24-year-old midfielder has signed a two-year deal and has moved to Southampton in search of more first team football.

It does seem a rather intriguing signing, though, given that in his career so far has seen only 25 appearances (13 of which as sub). At the age of 24, you could reasonably have expected him to have made considerably more first-team appearances, particularly considering the teams he has previously played for (Portsmouth, Stoke, Torquay, Plymouth, Grimsby and Bristol Rovers).

Saints have so far remained silent as to whether Stoke have effectively “dumped” an unwanted player on us as part of the Andrew Davies transfer. At face value, it seems the most plausible explanation for a transfer that really doesn’t appear necessary. Midfield isn’t an area where we are lacking, after all.