Downes joined the Saints on a permanent basis from West Ham in the summer following a loan spell last season but has been out-of-favour recently having been a mainstay of former boss Russell Martin’s side.

Town also made an offer to Downes in the close season and, as revealed earlier in the week, Southampton were unwilling to allow the 26-year-old to move to a relegation rival during this window.

Downes was left out of the squad for the game against the Blues a week ago when Juric said there had been “some problems” with the Town academy product in the days leading up to the game.

The Brentwood-born schemer was again absent for today’s FA Cup tie against Burnley at St Mary’s, which the Championship side won 1-0.

“Things happen in the window,” Juric told BBC Radio Solent. “We have a lot of professional players. Sometimes players make mistakes. It’s an ugly situation because his attitude was not good. It’s a little bit of a club problem and we’ll see now.

“We have [Jan] Bednarek who refused a big offer for his life to a big club and was always training and playing the games and that’s what i expect from all players.”

The Croat manager added: “It’s a bad situation, I think that sometimes when a market window happens, things that you don’t want happen.

“Now we have to think about how to resolve the problem, but I have to say I was a little bit disappointed.

“It’s not unusual. They do not do things correctly like you have to do. What is important is to put on the T-shirt, go to the training and train hard.

“Then you can disagree with the coach or with the club or with everybody. What is important is training hard, playing hard and then everything is resolvable.”

Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.