Marc Leonard

Leonard is the kind of midfielder whose value only becomes obvious once he misses a few matches, doing the unglamorous running that lets more expressive teammates take the credit. At Northampton he won player of the season votes from supporters and from his own teammates in the same campaign, a rare combination that says he impresses people watching for very different reasons. That reliability followed him to Birmingham, where he became part of a title winning midfield.

The tension around a player like this is that consistency rarely gets celebrated the way individual brilliance does, even when it matters just as much over a season. Leonard is unlikely to be the name fans shout about after a match, yet teams built around several players like him tend to stay competitive for the longest stretches. Whether he ever adds a sharper final ball to his game remains the open question.