One To Watch: Bruno Saltor

April sees Birmingham City play several times due to a very heavy fixture list in the latter parts of the season. Brighton are the team that we need to play in order to keep picking up points in what has been a rather good season for the Blues’.

As always, my one to watch is a member of the opposition whom I believe is their best player and will trouble our side the most. Normally, this comes in the form of an attacker if we are looking likely to be pinned back or a defender if I think that we will be on top. Make of this what you will but this week I have chosen full back Bruno Saltor.

The Spanish footballer captured my eye when he first joined the English game but this was mainly due to his bald head and beard combo. His footballing ability soon took my attention however, because despite not looking the most athletic, I think he is one of the best full backs in the entire league and wouldn’t look out of place in the Premier League should Brighton grace the top division once again.

The stats, despite not being particularly important, are always quite a good indicator to how well a player is doing. Firstly, he has played 39 games this season which shows how much his manager thinks of him. Plus, even after the mammoth fixture overload, he still looks as lively as he did in early September. The man is certainly one hell of an athlete!

Coupled with this, he has made 104 clearances so far. This is just over 2 per game. Considering he is a right back, and an attacking one at that, this shows that he is able to track back into the box in order to snuff out danger. However, I suspect that this figure is lower than it seems because instead of making a clearance, Bruno often likes to pass the ball out from the back.

Overall, he loves to bomb forward. His best asset is by far and away his crossing so I hope that we are able to track him if and when he goes beyond his own winger. He is also very very tenacious. He won’t give up on any ball and will always put a tackle in. A very good player and one that we need to watch out for.