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Martinez hopeful over Baines injury

Roberto Martinez says that it doesn't look as though the knocks that forced Leighton Baines off at the end of today's disappointing game at Southampton are serious.

The England international was withdrawn late on as a precaution after "feeling his knee and calf" following a couple of heavy tackles he suffered in the second half and he will be assessed on his return to Finch Farm.

“We will assess Leighton and see if it's a serious injury or not,” the manager said after the match.

“He was feeling his knee and his calf a little bit, we will assess him but it shouldn't be too bad.”

Martinez expects Baines will be fit for next Saturday's showdown with Manchester City at Goodison Park, one which could still have key implications in the race for the Champions League depending on what happens between Arsenal and Newcastle at The Emirates on Monday.

Though the odds are now heavily stacked against the Blues, Martinez was insistent when asked if the defeat at the St. Mary's had ended their Champions League hopes.

"Not at all," he said to BT Sport, "from our point of view it doesn't change at all."

"We have had eight wins in 10 games, that's a phenomenal return and allows us to go into the next two games trying to get maximum points.

"We are working towards the biggest points tally that we can get and at the end of the season, we will see where that takes us.

He admitted, though, that psychologically, his team has room to grow after they failed to mount a serious recovery from going 2-0 to two own goals in the first third of the match.

"You cannot underestimate the good run that the team has been in," he continued. "Today was a real setback, but we'll learn from this. We're still a very young group, the amount of changes we had to make made it extra difficult today, but we'll be ready for next Saturday."

"I think it's quite clear the two goals we gave away were very, very rare to see in a game. From that point on, we got a affected a little bit. We got a bit frustrated, we weren't our normal selves."

"We were unfortunate today in the way we conceded the goals. After that we came a little bit stronger in the second half, but we never had that confident look that we normally have to get that goal that would have been a good opportunity to get back into the game."

Quotes or other material sourced from ESPN

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