Understated former Premier League midfielder is better than Toni Kroos and Sergio Busquets, claims pundit

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Steven N’Zonzi certainly demonstrated his quality at Stoke City, but is he really the best midfielder in the entirety of the European game right now?

Former Stoke City favourite Steven N’Zonzi is currently the best performing midfielder in the whole of Europe, Spanish football journalist Graham Hunter has written in the Daily Record.

The rangy enforcer has been lauded by Sam Allardyce as one of his most inspired signings after Blackburn Rovers parted with a minimal fee to secure his services from relegated Ligue 1 side Amiens in 2009, according to the BBC, with N’Zonzi developing into one of the Premier League’s most underrated players during his time at Ewood Park and then Stoke City.

However, the 27-year-old has taken his game to a new level under Jorge Sampaoli with Sevilla this season, his superb performances in central midfield ensuring the Europa League holders have more than compensated for the potentially devastating departure of influential midfielder Grzegorsz Krychowiak to PSG.

And Hunter goes as far as to argue that no one in Europe can match the former Blackburn and Stoke midfielder on current form.

“Even though NZonzi won Player of the Season at Stoke [in 2015], his form is unrecognizable,” the Spanish football expert wrote in the Daily Record..

“Winning tackles, distributing with heat-seeking millimetre-precise passes, dictating the pace of the game, consistently choosing the right options and the rallying point for his team.

“If there’s a better central midfield player in Europe’s big leagues this season then I’ve not seen him – Kroos, Busquets, Gundögen, Thiago, Verratti, Matic, Khedira et al included.”

N’Zonzi has certainly evolved into an all-round phenomenon at the start of his second season in La Liga, adding driving forward runs and defence splitting passes to his customary defensive solidity.

Tallying only eight league goals throughout his career until the commencement of the current campaign, N’Zonzi’s well-taken winner in Sevilla’s 1-0 win against Atletico Madrid in October demonstrated his increasingly rounded skill-set.