MANAGER Russell Martin is hoping that Kamaldeen Sulemana's injury "isn't as bad" as Saints "fear" it could be. 

The Ghanaian international went down in the 35th minute of Southampton's 1-0 win over Bristol City on Wednesday evening and had to be replaced by Che Adams.

He was able to leave the feel on his feet after attention from the medics, however, he crossed the St Mary's turf gingerly while clutching his upper leg.

Asked by the Daily Echo for an update on Kamaldeen's fitness, Martin noted: "It looks like a significant one.

"We will scan it and hopefully it's not as bad as we fear it is. That is one of the big disappointments from tonight."

The introduction of Adams altered Saints' forward options. As a result, Martin changed players' positions in order to find the optimal formation.

"We found the solution at halftime thankfully," he continued. "We couldn't do that on the pitch because it would have been chaos.

"The biggest focus for us at halftime was telling the forwards where they should be on the pitch and why.

"I thought the three of them were really good. Carlos (Alcaraz) found so much space in the second half because of the amount of running that Che and Adam (Armstrong) did.

"Carlos was really effective in the second half. We have real flexibility with that now."