OFT-CRITICISED Saints centre-back Jan Bednarek has earned praise for his starring role in Saints’ 1-0 victory at Chelsea on Saturday, appearing in Garth Crook’s Team of the Week.

Bednarek has endured a difficult personal campaign, being deemed surplus to requirements at St Mary’s in the summer before heading out on loan to Aston Villa.

But after just one Premier League start in a disappointing half-season in Birmingham, Saints and then-manager Nathan Jones made the controversial decision to recall the Polish defender.

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Largely an unpopular figure amongst the Saints fanbase, Bednarek slotted into Jones's team almost instantly and has started in each of his parent club’s last three league games. That run included last weekend’s 2-1 defeat to Wolves in which Bednarek put through his own goal to hand the visitors an invaluable equaliser.

Somewhat surprisingly chosen by Jones’s immediate successor, Ruben Selles, for the trip to Chelsea, Bednarek put on a far more assured display as Saints earned just their second clean sheet of the domestic campaign.

The performance didn’t go unnoticed with BBC pundit Garth Crooks choosing Bednarek in the latest edition of his Team of the Week. 

Commenting on the 26-year-old, Crooks wrote: “What a defensive display by Southampton at Stamford Bridge. 

“For a team that has kept one clean sheet in 20 games, they defended against Chelsea as if their lives depended on it. I could have selected any one of their back five against the Blues, they were that impressive, but Bednarek was the standout defender for me.

“The Poland international has had a difficult season, but put his body on the line on more than one occasion, organised his defence brilliantly and weathered everything Chelsea could throw at him. 

“Would I give interim manager Ruben Selles the Southampton job permanently? Well, he can't do any worse than Nathan Jones now, can he?”

Far more predictably, match-winner James Ward-Prowse also made the team, with Crooks noting: “If anyone is going to pull Southampton out of their current situation it's Ward-Prowse.

"Championship football is out of the question for the likes of him, he is far too good for that level. The Saints showed real grit against Chelsea and Ward-Prowse his quality.”