Stoke City ;He is one of world-leading midfielders

Kudos to Josh Laurent, whose name may come as a surprise to some in the most recent weekly report from the CIES Football Observatory.

The Swiss-based football experts compare players, games, teams, and transfer markets in 28 international leagues to analyze particular aspects of the sport over the course of a season. They have identified injury time, net spending, devoted players, ball retention, tall and short players, marathon runners, the best in the air, and those who can dribble and finish during the past few months. Players from Manchester City, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Inter, or Bayern Munich typically dominate them.

This time, they have concentrated on players who, in comparison to the norm for their position, have the greatest sprints per ninety minutes—a term they use to describe “super accelerators.” The 28-year-old Stoke City captain, Laurent, ranks second among all defensive or center midfielders.

Apparently Laurent accelerates the ball 9.27 times on average every game. Runs lasting at least 0.7 seconds at a minimum speed of 10.8 km/h/s are involved; Laurent’s results are claimed to be 1.9 times higher than anticipated. CIES calls him a “infiltrator creator,” which seems like a pretty fitting description for a player who thrives when he’s moving ahead.

The former Reading player, who was given the captain’s armband in August, has had a patchy season. He was briefly connected to a move to Serie A club Frosinone and was considered by Luton Town, who had made a move for his Stoke teammate Jacob Brown.After losing his spot as Alex Neil’s automatic starter in October, he suffered a serious sprained ankle in Steven Schumacher’s first game as manager in mid-December, which sidelined him until mid-February.

But he has gradually eased his way back into the team since then, with a couple of cameos either side and start against Coventry before coming through 90 minutes in the last two matches – a 2-0 win over Middlesbrough and 1-0 defeat to Leeds – alongside old pal Lewis Baker and new deputy captain Wouter Burger.