Tribal Football

Southampton boss Martin explains plans for Ugochukwu, Charles and Edozie

Ansser Sadiq
Southampton boss Martin explains plans for Ugochukwu, Charles and Edozie
Southampton boss Martin explains plans for Ugochukwu, Charles and EdozieAction Plus
Southampton bossh Russell Martin has confirmed that Lesley Ugochukwu remains a part of his plans.

The Premier League club have been using Ugochukwu on loan from Chelsea this season.

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While he hasn’t featured as much has fans would have expected, the club are not going to move him back to Chelsea in the winter.

Martin told the Daily Echo: "I think if it's not Chelsea, he's probably back in the squad. He wasn't in the squad against Brighton and he knows the reason why.

"Every game is different so it doesn't mean he's not going to be in the squad moving forward. We will assess the situation and just have to assess it game to game."

He added on Shea Charles, now on-loan with Sheffield Wednesday: "I think Shea (Charles) went on loan to do exactly what he's done, to play every single week, rather than to be a squad player here.

"It was his first full season last year, we wanted him to build on that. We're really pleased with his development. It's gone exactly how we wanted it to, for him and for us.

"It's gone really well and it continues to go really well. We have another month to assess things. We have an option to recall Shea if we choose to.

"But we're not going to call him back unless he's going to come back in and play and impact the squad and be a big player for us.

"He needs to keep doing what he's doing. We'll continue to assess our situation and what we need but he's never not been in our plans. Same with Sam Edozie."

Indeed, on Sam Edozie, who is currently with Anderlecht, he also said: "We really believe that he will be a big player for us, otherwise we wouldn't have invested so much money in him. He had a really good first season.

"He played a lot of games and impacted a lot of games for us. In his first season as a professional player, he was part of a promotion-winning team.

"It's been great for him this season in terms of minutes played. We will assess it. We're in constant contact with him and we'll see what January brings."

 

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