Saints could be forgiven for having a few mixed feelings after sealing their place in the FA Cup third round with a 3-0 win over Cheltenham.

There was delight that they secured such a convincing St Mary’s win but worry that injuries suffered by Frazer Richardson, Rickie Lambert and Lee Holmes could see them miss the league clash with Hartlepool while Jose Fonte is definitely out after picking up his fifth booking of the season.

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Saints boss Nigel Adkins risked fielding a strong team and it paid off in terms of the result.

However, Holmes now looks like spending an extended spell on the sidelines with an ankle injury while Richardson and Lambert have more minor problems.

Adkins said: “We can all sit in front of the TV and see who we get out of the hat so we are happy about that.

“We scored three goals, kept a clean sheet, got a few injuries on a very cold day but give them a lot of credit because we got off to a good start with a goal from Lallana but they kept in the game.

“Things weren’t going as well as we liked when we had opportunities to score and then we lost Lee Holmes with an ankle injury that looked quite serious, Frazer Richardson had to come off with a groin injury, Bart was struggling after a collision and Rickie Lambert had to come off at half-time as well.

“We had several reshuffles so we had to make all the substitutions by half-time and all credit to the players who had a right go for each other in the second half.”