Southampton vs Man City team news: two out & five doubts for Carabao Cup quarter-final - Jack Grealish latest

Manchester City could be without one key player for Wednesday’s Carabao Cup quarter-final against Southampton.

The Blues head to the south coast for the last of the four matches at this stage, and will already know which other sides have progressed to the semi-finals by the time they finish at St Mary’s. Pep Guardiola should travel with an almost full-strength squad, with Ruben Dias the only major concern heading into the clash.

The defender has missed all five City matches since club football resumed due to a hamstring injury, and is not expected to be back in time for Wednesday’s game. Jack Grealish was a doubt earlier in the week after he missed Sunday’s FA Cup victory over Chelsea through illness and, after not being pictured in training on Monday, was spotted in Tuesday’s gallery on the club website and is expected to travel to Southampton.

Guardiola also hinted ahead of the game that Kalvin Phillips will start, with those rested against Chelsea - Ederson, John Stones, Nathan Ake, Ilkay Gundogan, Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland - likely to come into the side.

As for Southampton, they have a few more issues to deal with, and Alex McCarthy, Juan Larios, Valentino Livramento and Theo Walcott are doubts due to knocks, while manager Nathan Jones confirmed in his pre-match press conference that two players have definitely been ruled out.

Asked if he’d have any returning players from last weekend’s FA Cup win over Crystal Palace, Jones replied: “Not in terms of Armel [Bella-Kotchap] or Stuart Armstrong, but the ones that we looked after on the weekend because of minutes will come back.

“I think every game is huge at the minute, going into Saturday we had huge selections,” the former Luton Town manager added. “We had to respect the competition and play a team capable of winning the game and have one eye on Wednesday.”

Southampton brought Samuel Edozie, Joe Aribo, Adam Armstrong and Che Adams off during Saturday’s match, with Romeo Lavia rested, while Kyle Walker-Peters and Ibrahima Diallo were introduced from the bench. All seven are expected to start against City, and January signing Mislav Orsic could also make his debut on Wednesday.

Doubts: McCarthy, Larios, Livramento, Walcott (Southampton); Dias (City)

Ruled out: Bella-Kotchap, S. Armstrong (Southampton)