Southampton's James Ward-Prowse on Danny Ings and Ralph Hasenhuttl

The Saints ace bagged the winner against Leicester on Saturday to take his overall tally to 16 goals for the season.

This has led to calls for Ings to be named in Gareth Southgate’s Three Lions squad for the friendlies in March.

And with Harry Kane ruled out of action until March, Ward-Prowse believes now is the time for his Saints teammate to get the nod from Southgate.

When asked if there is a better striker in England right now, the 25-year-old said: “Probably not, no.

“It’s nice to see him doing well because he deserves it.

Danny Ings during his only England appearance in 2015

“Everyone sees the goals but if you watch us press as a team he sets it off with Longy and he’s getting his rewards.

“He has done more than enough already [for an England call-up], not just from his goals but also from the way he is working without the ball.”

Although another three points in the bag was a bonus for Saints, beating Leicester meant they were able to restore some of the pride that had been lost in the 9-0 mauling back in October.

In the aftermath of that defeat, manager Ralph Hasenhuttl insisted there would be no more talking unless it was on the pitch.

An international break of reflection and going back to basics has proven to be crucial to how they’ve turned their season around.

However, Saturday’s game was always going to determine just how far they had come since the end of October.

Because of that, Ward-Prowse believes the 2-1 was the sweetest one yet.

“It’s massive,” he continued.

“That was probably the lowest point of our careers and one of the lowest points for the club.

“To overturn it was massive and it proves again that that night was a massive wake-up call for all of us.

“We are a totally different side now and we are heading in the right direction.

“We’ve beaten some big teams in recent weeks and there is nothing better than that winning feeling after a game.

“You can feel the energy after the game. Everybody worked their socks off to get that win.

“What happened when we played them last time is always in the back of your mind, but we focused purely on what we were doing.

“We showed that everybody is fighting, on the same page and going in the right direction.”

Before the match at the King Power Stadium, when Saints were going through their warm-up, a highlights montage of the 9-0 played on the big screen.

Hasenhuttl’s side noticed this, with a few of them looking up and taking notice as each of the goals flew past Angus Gunn.

But that wouldn’t be the last time they saw a montage of that game before kick-off.

Instead of a rousing team talk, Hasenhuttl had organised his own highlights montage of the 9-0 thrashing but paired it with just how far they’ve come since then.

And Ward-Prowse revealed that the short video was enough to fire the players up to get after Leicester from the first minute.

He revealed: “We watched a motivational video of what happened and what we’ve done differently to now.

“You could see everybody was focused and zoned in on it.

Ralph Hasenhuttl celebrates the superb triumph at the King Power Stadium

“You could feel the concentration and energy was for us to go out there and put it right and from the first minute, we did that.

“It brought those feelings back and meant we came back into the dressing room with a different feeling to last time.”