Jamie George returns to Saracens line up for clash against Northampton

England international Jamie George has made a successful recovery from a knee injury and will be captaining Saracens in their upcoming Gallagher Premiership game against Northampton Saints to be played on Sunday.

George sustained the injury during England's Autumn Nations campaign in the clash against Australia and was initially expected to be out of action for the entire January. He will now be part of the front-row that also has Mako Vunipola and Harvey Beaton.

Vincent Koch will miss the game after testing positive for Covid-19 with Maro Itoje and Nick Isiekwe continuing their partnership at second row while Theo McFarland joins Ben Earl and Billy Vunipola at back row.

Alex Goode will continue to take the kicking responsibility with Aled Davies at scrum-half while Elliot Daly comes at left wing and Sean Maitland at right. The midfield partnership is unchanged with Nick Tompkins and Alex Lozowski retaining their places while Max Malins is at fullback.

“He was nearly OK for last week but this week he’s raring to go and it’s great to have him back," said director of rugby Mark McCall about George's return.

He added: “Against Worcester it was a heck of an effort considering our limited training time so we want to build on that with two really tough games ahead of us.

We’re got Northampton and then Gloucester who are flying so it’s a really big couple of weeks coming up for us.”

Northampton: Furbank; Sleightholme, Hutchinson, Francis, Skosan; Biggar, Mitchell; Waller, Matavesi, Hill, Coles, Ratuniyarawa, Lawes, Ludlam (capt), Augustus.

Reserves: Fish, Iyogun, Carey, Ribbans, Wood, James, Dingwall, Tuala

Saracens: Malins; Maitland, Lozowski, Tompkins, Daly; Goode, Davies; Mako Vunipola, George (capt), Beaton, Itoje, Isiekwe, McFarland, Earl, B Vunipola.

Reserves: Woolstencroft, Mawi, Milasinovich, Hunter-Hill, Wray, Van Zyl, Manu Vunipola, Segun.