Ante Budimir says his good form this year has been helped by learning from others and putting in extra work after training.

The striker is enjoying his best season to date as an RCD Mallorca player with nine goals and three assists in 25 league appearances, but believes there are qualities other strikers have which he can add to his own game. 

“I have a big list of players I looked up to, I will start with, from Croatia for example: Mario Mandzukic,” he told our club podcast, Play Red. “I like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Diego Molito, Didier Drogba, Edin Dzkeo from Roma a lot - I have like 10 players that are really useful to see and watch what they are doing.

“I really like to be in the area and I like to see where the ball can come. I really want to be with good timing for every ball and I try to also use my head and use both feet in the area. I try to be as skilful as possible.”

The side’s top goal scorer in La Liga, our Croatian values the importance of putting in hours on the training ground should we be successful in our fight for survivial. 

"I’m happy how it’s going, and I’m in a good point, but I’m far away from the end of the season so I’m happy but not satisfied because I want more," he added. "I want to achieve important things for RCD Mallorca and stay in the league. I want to have a contribution in that, but it’s far from over.

“I like to work on myself and I like to follow myself every week to see how what’s happening going on through the week and during game time. Then of course, you see that you need to work a little bit on this or on that, but overall, I think it’s really necessary to do extra work and overall if you want to better, you need to do it.”