Birmingham City are in the market for a new left-back on deadline day and South Korean star Lee Myung-jae is expected to fill the vacancy.

Blues have been scouring left-back options far and wide in a bid to find cover for Alex Cochrane after Lee Buchanan suffered a season-ending knee injury at the end of December. Lee is available on a free transfer and would provide Blues with bags of experience.

The 31-year-old has just finished his contract at Ulsan HD where he has spent a decade and won the last three K-League titles. Apart from a brief loan spell at Japanese team Albirex Niigata in 2014 and 18-month stint with military club Gimcheon Sangmu, where Korean players complete their mandatory military service, Lee has spent his entire career with the K-League champions.

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Lee’s form in recent years has earned him a place in South Korea’s squad and he has made the left-back spot his own in the last 12 months. The left-back has earned seven caps for his country alongside Blues midfielder Paik Seung-ho.

He ticks an important box for manager Chris Davies who has insisted on signing players with title triumphs or promotions on their CVs during this window to ensure Blues have an abundance of knowhow at the business end of the season.

Speaking to BirminghamLive last week, Davies said: “We’ve got a great three months ahead but it’s going to be testing as well. There’s going to be pressure and expectation inside the stadium. To be able to deal with that takes strong characters and the experience helps. Some players that are young, it’s not that they are not strong characters, but sometimes they don’t have the wealth of experience to cope with those situations.

“For me, my gut feeling was that if we were going to bring anyone in at this time of year, I wanted it to be players that were experienced. If they had won a promotion or played plenty of games, that was what I was looking for.”

According to Korea JoongAng Daily, Lee ‘is known for his speed and accurate crosses’ and would give Blues a slightly different option to Cochrane at left-back. Despite Cochrane’s quality in the final third, the ex-Hearts man has largely been asked to invert and form a back three with Blues’ two centre-backs when the team has been in possession in matches.

Having just been named in the K-League best XI, Lee is in his prime and ready to make his mark in England.