Paik Seung-Ho

Paik is not afraid to shoot from range when a central midfielder might normally work the ball into a better position first, and that willingness has produced spectacular goals. His touch and awareness in tight spaces trace back to years spent inside Barcelona's academy, even though his path to regular first team football took him elsewhere. A strike against Brazil at a World Cup, good enough to be nominated among the very best of that tournament, remains the clearest proof of what he can do.

The tension is that a midfielder built to strike from distance can drift out of games decided through patient short passing. Championship football rewards players who influence matches constantly rather than in one moment of quality, so Paik has added steady, unglamorous work to his game. How often he gets a sight of goal is usually the clearest sign of how well Birmingham use him.