Shane Long to lead Southampton line at Manchester City

Ronald Koeman has backed Shane Long to spearhead Southampton's attack at Manchester City in the absence of suspended top-scorer Graziano Pelle.

Pelle is banned after picking up five bookings this season but Saints boss Koeman believes Long, who is usually deployed behind the Italian, can play up front alone.

"You'll always miss a player who regularly starts but we can certainly cope," said Koeman. "If we couldn't, I would be doing something wrong, because we're only talking about one player in the squad.

"Shane's a different player, with different qualities but also a very dangerous front player. He was a long time injured, he played 90 minutes last weekend and he will start again.

"Our style will be the same; that we try to play football, to build up from the back, but of course in direct play, it needs to be changed a little bit."

Long, who helped the Republic of Ireland reach Euro 2016 earlier this month, has previously impressed when playing as a lone striker having stepped up in Pelle's absence in a 1-1 draw with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge last March.

"Graziano's the top-scorer in the team, but last season we played without him at Chelsea away and had a good result," added Koeman.

"I still remember what John Terry said after the game that 'we found it so tough to play against Shane Long'. So hopefully we can see the same again now."

Manchester City go into Saturday's game on the back of a 4-1 defeat by Liverpool at the Etihad and they will be desperate to avoid losing consecutive home games for the first time in seven years. 

If we couldn't [cope], I would be doing something wrong, because we're only talking about one player in the squad.

They also lost to Juventus in the Champions League this week, but Koeman said he sympathised with his team's next opponents.

"Teams like City are used to having that pressure about winning games. Even for City, it's difficult handle the number of injuries they have now," added the Dutchman.