Crystal Palace are set to be without two of their players for the visit of Southampton in the Premier League. The Eagles take on an injury-hit Saints squad at Selhurst Park with the hope of making it two straight wins on the back of three consecutive defeats as far as Premier League football is concerned.
Scotland international midfielder McArthur has missed the better part of the last one month as a result of a thigh problem, but he’s back in training. In his pre-match press conference for the Everton game at the weekend, Palace manager Patrick Vieira told reporters that McArthur has started some individual training and that the midfielder was part of the training session for the first 15-20 minutes.
On his part, Ferguson has not played for Crystal Palace this season due to injury.The Palace defender had been struggling with knee and thigh injuries before now. He had not played for the Eagles since signing for the South London club last summer. Ferguson joined Crystal Palace from West Brom at the start of last season. On Ferguson, Vieira said that the player needs several weeks of training under his belt and that the next step afterwards would be the u-23 team.
While McArthur and Ferguson are not expected to be in the Palace squad for the home game with the Saints, the team is expected to receive a big defensive boost with the return of Danish international centre back Joachim Andersen to the squad at least though James Tomkins could continue in central defence alongside Marc Guehi.
Guehi and Andersen started as the first choice centre backs at Palace this season before a hamstring injury ruled out the latter for the last few games.