Most expected Jan Bednarek to be joining West ham United on season long loan, David Moyes certainly did, but then came a massive U turn and the polish defender suddenly changed his mind and went to Aston Villa, now the reasons have been revealed,
On the face of it if you are going to join a club on a season long loan rather than a permanent deal, your motives for doing so maybe slightly different than if you are going to sign permanently.
But for Jan Bednarek his main concern was that he was playing regularly and would be in the Poland World Cup squad in November.
Of course the playing regularly motive didn't seem to be on his mind back in March when Ralph Hasenhuttl found that Bednarek was not available for selection in the FA Cup against Manchester City as his head was not in the right place with his concentration on Poland's World Cup qualification game.
That was perhaps the beginning of the end for him at St Mary's, although truthfully his heart hadn't been in it for most of the season.
Poland's manager Czesław Michniewicz has had this to say about the situation.
"Janek told me such a nice sentence that he fell asleep as a West Ham United player, and woke up as a player of Aston Villa,” the Poland manager said, as quoted by Sport.pl.
Michniewicz suggested Moyes failed to assure Bednarek of having a key role at West Ham and that eventually played in Aston Villa’s favour.
"First, he talked to David Moyes, who invited him to West Ham and said that he needed a defender because the one they had brought for €35m had suffered a serious injury,” he added.
"And Janek was determined to go there. He wanted to compete with the other centre-backs. West Ham have a lot of games because they also play in the Conference League. But then Steven Gerrard called him and the conversation was different.
"He [Gerrard] just told him that he would be an important player for him. He used the argument of the World Cup. ‘I know you want to go to the World Cup. You will be playing at my place, you will prepare, I also have Matty Cash here, so it’s good for your team.’ This declaration convinced him.”
It sounds a lovely story, but the truth is the scenario at both clubs was fairly similar, each manager wasn't that interested in a permanent deal, each had to cover a long term injury issue just for the season and each already had central defenders in situ.
From this point of view and with West Ham playing Europa Conference games, surely Benarek would have more opportunity for game time with the Hammers than he would at Villa.
Also West Ham could be said to be a step up from Southampton in terms of League position at present, where Villa have not fared any better than Saints over the past half dozen years or so.
The choices would seem to be a club playing for things or a club that has struggled over the past couple of years and whose marque signing, the man that Bednarek would be replacing on a temporary basis was out for the season.
You would think that a player wanting to better himself and win things given that it was only a season long loan, would have chosen West Ham every day of the week.
I could understand it if Gerrard wanted him on a permanent basis, but that wasn't the case, neither club was interested in him long term, so why not choose the one in the best position overall.
Since joining Villa Bednarek has waxed lyrical bout everything from the stadium to the tea lady and all in between, I daresay that he has been soft soaped about the chances of a long term deal at the end of the loan by Steven Gerrard, but if that was the case why did Gerrard not go for him in the summer instead of the now injured Diego Carlos, after all Bednarek is 3 years younger than the 29 year old Brazilian and could have been bought for a little less than the £26 million that Villa paid.
Either way with Bednarek being dropped after the first two games for Saints and being an unused sub in the following 3, by the time he can make his debut for Villa, an EFL cup game against League One Cambridge aside it will have been 7 weeks since his last League action and that is assuming that Gerrard picks him for his side against Leeds on 2nd October.
That will give him very few opportunities to play before the final 23 man World Cup squads need to be submitted on 20th October, I make it just three chances for Bednarek, given that the 4th game he could take part in for Villa is on 20th October itself.
If he had chosen West ham then between now and 20th October he could play in 5 Premier League games plus another 3 Europa Conference games and the chances are he would have played in the Hammers game against FCSB last week.
So Jan Bednarek hasn't really thought this decision through very well, I said in another story that he would probably be cheering on Villa on Friday from the stands, the blunt truth for jan is he could really do with us routing them, if they keep a clean sheet then his chances of getting in the team against Leeds on 2nd October will be slim.
If he doesn't do that then will Czesław Michniewicz be quoting funny little stories about him, or will he have stopped laughing and be considering whether he can take a risk on a player that at club level has barely played since last May in the biggest footballing tournament in the World.
So it seems that going to Aston Villa is going to play little part in Jan Bednarek's chances of going to Quatar, it will mainly depend on the two games Poland will play in the International break when they meet first the Netherlands at home and then Wales.