Nathaniel Clyne is today set to become the fifth Saints player to make his England debut in little over a year.

Clyne follows in the footsteps of Rickie Lambert, Adam Lallana, Luke Shaw and Jay Rodriguez, who all won their first caps for England last season.

The 23-year-old right-back is expected to get the nod ahead of former Saints teammate Calum Chambers for today’s Euro 2016 qualifier against Slovenia at Wembley.

Last night England boss Roy Hodgson was remaining coy over his team selection but dropped a heavy hint that both Clyne and Sadio Berahino could make their debuts.

“The two of them are here to play,” he said.

“I have selected the team but when it comes to qualifying matches I don’t want to broadcast it to everyone and give the opposition the chance to know the team earlier than they normally would.”

Clyne was overlooked in the last round of international fixtures with Chambers preferred.

However, the man Saints sold to Arsenal for £16m last summer wasn’t convincing and most pundits believe Clyne is the best English right-back at this time.

He could have been reunited in the team with Shaw but for a UEFA rule change that has frustrated Hodgson.

Kieran Gibbs will make just his second competitive start for the Three Lions after Leighton Baines pulled out of the squad, which also includes Saints keeper Fraser Forster, on Friday with a hamstring injury.

Baines suffered the injury just after the start of England’s training session at St George’s Park yesterday, which began at 11am - the exact time when he submitted his 23-man squad list for the match to UEFA.

Hodgson had left his other left-back Shaw off the list because he wanted to rest the Manchester United defender so he could play in Tuesday’s friendly in Scotland.

The FA contacted UEFA to ask for Shaw to replace the injured Baines on the list, but their plea was rejected.

“I can’t pretend that I think it’s a great idea that you have to name 23 players almost 36 hours before the game,” said the England manager of the rule, which was brought in earlier this summer.

"Training injuries do occur and people do get injuries and fall sick.

“I would like to think that if you are allowed to have 23 players in your squad that you should at least have the right (to) a little bit longer than 36 hours.

"I did know about the rule. My hope was that because we were only 25 minutes late when we applied to bring Luke back into the squad that maybe UEFA would look at that and say 'it's a reasonable request and we can show some flexibility' but they decided that wasn't possible, that the rule is the rule, and that 11 o'clock is the deadline and because the injury occurred 25 minutes past 11 we missed it."

Michael Carrick and Andros Townsend pulled out of the squad earlier this week due to their respective groin and ankle problems, which means the England boss is now down to 23 players.

Hodgson's plans have also been disrupted because of the state of the Wembley pitch, which has cut up because of last weekend's NFL match between Jacksonville Jaguars and Dallas Cowboys.

Last week the England manager said he was deeply unhappy the game took place just six days before the Slovenia match, but his mind has been put at ease slightly by coach Gary Neville, who inspected the surface on Friday.

“I suppose I have to have concerns after what has been written and all of the reports,” Hodgson said.

“A lot of them are pretty negative, but as far as I'm concerned I'm just waiting to see.

“Gary has been to see the pitch, so we have a pretty clear update of how it is.

“His update was perhaps not as critical as some of the other reports I've read, but as far as I'm concerned we're ready for the game and we will be ready for the game on whatever surface we play it. Any discussions about the pitch and how good or bad it is, I'll leave until after the game.”