LEICESTER City manager Brendan Rodgers expects star James Maddison to be ready to make his injury and illness return versus Saints this weekend.

The 26 year old missed defeats to Arsenal and Blackburn Rovers for the Foxes over the last week but is likely to feature at St Mary’s.

England international Maddison has scored nine goals and registered five assists in 17 Premier League appearances alone this year.

One of those came in the reverse fixture versus Saints in August, when he dispatched a free-kick to give Leicester a lead. Che Adams later scored twice to win that match.

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Rodgers, set to bring his Foxes team to St Mary’s on Saturday, March 4, confirmed his hopes that talisman Maddison will be ready.

“He’s virtually done no training for a couple of weeks,” the Northern Irishman said.

“The idea was to get a few good days of training into him on Monday and Tuesday. He’ll train for the remainder of the week and he should be fine, fingers crossed.”

Midfielder Youri Tielemans has an ankle injury picked up in a 1-0 defeat by Arsenal on Saturday and the Foxes are waiting for the results of a scan to determine the seriousness of the problem.

Long-term absentee Jonny Evans could miss out despite returning to training this week, with Rodgers set to confirm later this week.