When you have a formidable figure such as Virgil van Dijk marshalling your backline, you’d probably be forgiven for not scouring the transfer market for another centre-back.
However, when that was the case for Southampton in 2017, Vice Chairman Les Reed still decided to look under a few rocks outside Europe’s top five leagues for the next big thing.
While he didn’t find another player of Van Dijk’s ilk, Reed did unearth a rough diamond – Jan Bednarek.
The Saints eventually signed the Polish centre-back from Lech Poznan, handing them £5m for the 21-year-old’s services.
Now 23 years of age, Bednarek has proven to be an astute capture, even more so given the finances involved.
As aforesaid, the defender cost only £5m, which in itself is a bargain. However, he has also been earning just £20k-a-week during that time – we say ‘just’ as it’s nothing, although in the modern footballing era, it really isn’t much.
Bednarek arrived at St Mary’s on July 1st 2017, signing a five-year contract.
If you were to count the weeks from that date to now, the 21-cap Poland international has been at Southampton for 141 weeks, meaning that he has earned a total of £2.82m in wages.
Add that to his £5m transfer fee, and Bednarek has only cost Southampton £7.82m – a true bargain given his current status as a first-team regular.
The 23-year-old has started 27 Premier League games out of a possible 29 this term, and has made 67 appearances for the Saints in total – that means he has cost the club only £116.7k per appearance since his arrival.
At just 23 years of age, Bednarek’s best years are surely ahead of him and his value – according to Transfermarkt – stands at £13.5m, so it was a wise investment from Reed and one that looks sure to land Southampton a profit.
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He is far from the finished article, but the Pole was an excellent capture in a financial sense.
In other news, this Southampton man has been draining Gao’s bank account for 88 weeks…