Southampton vs Wolves preview: Tough test for Nuno's men against beaten finalists

But try telling Southampton the competition doesn’t mean anything anymore. The Saints enjoyed a thrilling ride last season when they made it all the way to Wembley where they were unlucky 3-2 losers against Manchester United.

The south coast club certainly did it the hard way, beating four Premier League sides on the way to the final – including Arsenal away in the quarter-finals and then Liverpool in a dramatic two-legged semi-final – with Shane Long’s injury-time winner at Anfield sealing a 2-0 aggregate win and sparking wild scenes in the away end.

The players who took Saints to Wembley are almost all still at the club after a summer of minimal changes at St Mary’s.

There’s a new manager in the form of Argentinian former Alaves boss Mauricio Pellegrino, who replaced Claude Puel.

But the first XI is almost unchanged. Jay Rodriguez is the only major departure, having joined Albion for £12m, while in-demand centre-half Virgil van Dijk seems certain to leave the club after submitting a transfer request.

In have come young Polish defender Jan Bednarek for £5m and highly-rated Juventus midfielder Mario Lemina for £15m.

Dutch international centre-half Wesley Hoedt also joined yesterday from Lazio, which may facilitate Van Dijk’s exit from St Mary’s Stadium.

Other than that, Southampton’s XI has a familiar look to the side that achieved an eighth-placed Premier League finish in 2016/17

Fraser Forster is in goal, Oriol Romeu does the dirty work in midfield, Dusan Tadic and Nathan Redmond are the creative sparks and Manolo Gabbiadini and Charlie Austin are charged with scoring the bulk of Southampton’s goals.

Not that many of Southampton’s first-choice players are likely to start tonight.

Expect to see the likes of Shane Long, James Ward-Prowse, Sofiane Boufal, Bednarek and Austin – who came off the bench to score Saturday’s last-minute winner in a 3-2 thriller against West Ham – to feature this evening. Pellegrino said his side can build on the performance against the Hammers, which saw them pegged back to 2-2 despite being 2-0 and a man up with West Ham down to 10 men.

“I think in the first half, particularly the first 25 minutes we played well. We had the possibility to score goals and we arrived in wide areas with efficiency,” he said. “In counter-attacks we were really dangerous. After the second goal for me, we could not control the ball, not in terms of possession because we had it, but in terms of scoring the third goal we need to be more clinical in those moments.

“For the strikers, scoring goals completes their work but the best thing is that we won against a strong team.”