Preview: Exeter City vs Southampton U21s – EFL Trophy

With reports at time of writing suggesting Matt Taylor has taken up the offer of the Rotherham job, Tuesday night’s EFL Trophy match against Southampton’s youngsters has somewhat paled into insignificance. With news of Taylor’s departure still filtering through so too is news awaited about whether any of his staff will follow him, so the assumption is that assistant Wayne Carlisle will be in charge on Tuesday night. With regard to playing personnel it’s assumed that City will ring the changes as much as they can considering they couldn’t even fill the bench against Bristol Rovers on Saturday. Kegs Chauke, who presumably would have been playing in this fixture for the visitors had he not signed on loan for City in the summer, is likely to start while others like Sonny Cox and Pedro Borges will also expect to feature.

Southampton’s U23 side haven’t had the best of times in this competition, having never progressed past the group stage since the inclusion of U23 sides – and this season currently looks no different with the Saints having lost 3-1 to Forest Green in their opening group game. Amongst the collection of youngsters in the side Southampton in 2021 took the unusual step of re-signing their former player Olly Lancashire to provide playing support to their side, and he featured in the defeat at Forest Green at the tender age of 33.

Tuesday night represents the first occasion on which the sides will have met.

The match officials for this game are:-

Referee: Sunny Gill
Assistant Referees: Justin Amey and Jack Clench
Fourth Official : James Durkin

This is Sunny Gill’s first season in the EFL and so hasn’t refereed any Exeter games.