SAINTS defender Armel Bella-Kotchap returned to the pitch during this week’s behind-closed-doors friendly at Brentford.

The German international played 45 minutes – his first of the season since an injury at Nottingham Forest ended his Premier League campaign early.

Bella-Kotchap, 21, has impressed manager Russell Martin in training but faces an uncertain future in the closing stages of the transfer window.

A young Southampton team won 2-1 at Premier League Brentford on Tuesday – which was initially scheduled to bed in new signings.

Martin told the Daily Echo: “I was really pleasantly surprised by it, it was meant to be a game for people coming in but Flynn (Downes) was ill and Mason (Holgate) and Ryan (Fraser) weren’t done yet.

“It opened an opportunity for people to play and we had a lot of young players on the pitch against a really good Brentford team.

“I was so impressed at the team we put out. The team we put out hadn’t played many minutes in the way we were asking them to play currently,” he continued.

The Saints team also featured the likes of Joe Aribo, Sekou Mara and summer signing Zach Awe, who is currently playing for the under-21 team.

“To produce that level of performance, I was really proud. I said to them after, we can’t take that for granted as it was brilliant,” Martin said.

“There were a lot of young players, it was one of the first times we had seen Dom (Ballard) properly with Tyler (Dibling) and Sam (Amo-Ameyaw) either side of him.

“Breezy (James Bree) had his best game for us since we have been here so there were loads of positives, and we showed them that.”

“We analysed the game the same way we would with the boys who didn’t go on Tuesday and trained, we showed them as it’s really important everyone understands what we expect.”