Igor Julio

Igor Julio arrived at Brighton having already played senior football in Austria and Italy, a route through the game that toughens a player up in ways a single academy never quite manages. That background shows in how comfortably he shifts between centre back and left back within the same season, adjusting his angles and his distances without needing weeks to settle. Managers value that kind of defender precisely because he removes a selection headache rather than creating one.

The tension with a player this adaptable is that he rarely gets to be anybody's first choice in one specific role, always the cover rather than the certainty. That can mean long spells out of the side despite doing nothing wrong himself. Whether Brighton eventually settle him into a single position permanently, or keep using him as the squad's answer to injuries, remains an open question.