Michael Svoboda

Svoboda took the long route to the Premier League, starting out in Austria's second tier before earning a move to Italian football, where the tactical discipline demanded of centre backs is famously exacting. That gradual climb through increasingly demanding leagues has left him well drilled in the basics of defending, comfortable holding a line and timing his positioning rather than relying on raw physical dominance alone. He organises defenders around him with the confidence of somebody who has already proven himself elsewhere.

His form for Austria's national team has run alongside that club progress, becoming a senior international during a period when his country qualified for a major tournament again after a long absence. Carrying that trust into a new domestic league is not automatic, since Premier League forwards move and finish differently to anything he faced in Italy. How quickly he adjusts will decide how settled he looks.