Koeman pleased to have options ahead of Palace

The Saints manager will have decisions to make, with both Victor Wanyama and Morgan Schneiderlin back from suspension, while José Fonte will miss the game after picking up his fifth booking of the season in the win against Everton on Saturday.

There was good news for Koeman on Tuesday as winger Dušan Tadic trained having missed the games against Sheffield United and Everton.

Speaking to Southampton’s official YouTube channel, Koeman said: “We try to prepare game by game but in this situation it is difficult because in three days we have two games and you don’t have time to recover, or analyse the first one.

“But okay, we have to be prepared. The good news is that we will have some players back like Wanyama and Schneiderlin. Dušan Tadić did a normal training session today [Tuesday] and that makes everything a little bit easier.

“In my experience, the first one is the most important. What happens after you can’t do anything about, we will prepare for our first game which is against Crystal Palace in the best way and then after we will see what happens against Chelsea.

“Okay, we have José not available after five yellow cards. We have to change that position but still we have two training sessions to be prepared and to make the decisions we have to make.”

After switching to a 3-5-2 formation on Saturday against Everton, Koeman admits he will have decisions to make when it comes to both individual team selection and the tactic he deploys against Palace.

“That’s always the difficult part [having to make decisions on who he plays] but sometimes you like to have those choices,” he added. “That means everyone is in good physical shape. You have to make those choices and decisions.

“I think it’s always good to have not only one system because sometimes moments in the game can change. We have good players to play both systems. We will see what we need this Friday.”