By the time Derby County’s manager, George Burley, brought him to England in 2004, Grzegorz Rasiak had played for several clubs in his native Poland and had become a regular in his national team. His busy Championship season at Derby ended when the Rams failed to survive the play-offs and were so cash-strapped that they had to sell him – to Spurs for £3m, all of it profit on a player who had arrived on a free.

Although Tottenham’s manager, Martin Jol, boasted that he had signed “a tall target-man, a hard-working, honest player with a good goal-scoring record,” he had scarcely used Grzegorz before allowing him to rejoin Burley, by now managing Southampton. He came initially on loan but signed permanently in the summer of 2006. A laconic footballer who drifts in and out of the game is always likely to divide opinion – is he laid-back or hanging back? – and Raziak was no exception. But there can surely be no questioning the commitment which –

in conjunction with his elegant touch, ability in the air and a sure eye for goal – brought him 17 goals in his first 26 starts of the Saints’ 2006-07 season.

Yet he thereafter handed the scoring-mantle to his compatriot, Marek Saganowski, and contributed only two more goals to that campaign. The second of those came in the semi-final of the play-offs at Derby, when he came on for Saganowski, to score the 89th-minute goal that took the tie to extra time and penalties. For good measure, he scored in the losing shoot-out. He survived the consequent summer exodus, but the loss of such players as Chris Baird, Gareth Bale and Claus Lundekvam meant that 2007-08 was an anti-climactic season; and when Burley left in January to manage Scotland, Grzegorz departed, the week after, to Bolton on loan, for a final Premiership flurry. After which, he made his way home to Poland, via the Championship and Cyprus, the holder of 37 caps. He retired from the game in 2014.