Southampton: Bednarek awarded club’s Player of the Month award
By Marc Walker
Defender Jan Bednarek has been named Southampton’s Player of the Month for May after impressing in the final games of the season.
The Polish international made eight first-team appearances for Southampton over the course of 2017/18, with most of those coming when he was called upon to fill the gap in defence left by the suspended Jack Stephens.
He also managed to grab himself a goal in his first Premier League start for the club against Chelsea in April. He met James Ward-Prowse’s free-kick with a sweet, first-time volley and finished with the composure of a seasoned striker.
The Saints have clearly noticed how well the 22-year-old did when stepping into the high pressure of a relegation battle late in the season and have voted him as the player they felt made the biggest impression in the final month of the campaign.
Bednarek joined last summer for a fee of around £5.5m after impressing for Poland’s Under-21s at the 2017 Under-21 European Championships.
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He made his first Southampton appearance in just the third game of the season. It didn’t go as he would have liked though as the Saints crashed out of the Carabou Cup with a 2-0 loss at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers.
He had to make do with playing for the club’s Under-23s side for much of his first year in England and clocked up seven appearances in Premier League 2.
The Centre-Back is clearly seen as a good prospect for the future on the South-Coast. At 6ft 2in, he is a good height for a defender and looked more than capable in possession at times in the last matches.
He has just 66 senior appearances across his career so far after spells at Gornik Leczna and Lech Poznan before transferring to England last June.
Good news also came for Bednarek recently when he was named in Poland’s provisional squad for this summer’s World Cup in Russia. He currently has one cap at senior level but could be drafted into the country’s travelling party for the tournament.
If he is chosen for his country’s final squad, he could be involved in their group matches against Senegal, Columbia and Maya Yoshida’s Japan.
With more defensive reinforcements likely during the summer, it remains to be seen if Bednarek can retain a prominent role within the squad but he certainly did himself not harm by ending the season the way he did.