Southampton boss Ralph Hasenhuttl says January signings should not be allowed to play in games rearranged from before Christmas.
The Saints manager was speaking ahead of Saturday's FA Cup 3rd round trip to Swansea City.
Southampton haven't played in nearly a fortnight, after their New Year's meeting with Newcastle was postponed due to a combination of COVID-19 and injuries in the Magpies squad.
Hasenhuttl was unhappy with a supposed lack of transparency in the reasons for that game being called off, and have issued a complaint to the Premier League as a result.
When Newcastle do eventually visit St. Mary's, they're likely to be in a far better place regarding their playing pool.
Kieran Trippier completed a €15million move from Atletico Madrid on Friday, while others are also set to sign up for the Saudi-backed club before the January window closes.
But Hasenhuttl says the Premier League should consider barring new signings from playing in re-fixed matches.
"It is for us the same,” Hasenhuttl said. “We can also now with our new owners sign three players and I don’t think it is really fair for them to play in games that have been postponed.
"I think the last word is not spoken so far. I was disappointed we could not play because we have been in good shape.
"We also had five cases of Covid. It is not long ago that we had to fill up our team with nine academy players and then we got a big defeat against Man United.”
Hasenhuttl added, “I think it should maybe be something the Premier League is discussing.
“How many games have we had postponed? I think 16, 17 or 18 games so far. It is something that you cannot stop playing in December and wait for a signing in January to play.
“Nobody did this but it could in the future be an opportunity. You shouldn’t get that … We could now sign four players and against Brentford we could play with a completely different squad.”
Full steam ahead as Champions Cup to resume as normal next week
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