How does Anthony Elanga compare to the Premier League’s fastest players?

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Anthony Elanga has multiple strengths.

He can score goals and make them. In the past two years with Nottingham Forest, his work off the ball has improved significantly.

But there is one attribute that stands out above all others with Newcastle United’s potential new signing — raw speed.

In the 2024-25 Premier League, the former Manchester United academy winger recorded both the third-highest top speed and spent the third-highest percentage of time sprinting.

On top of his other attributes, the 23-year-old Sweden international is an old-fashioned speed merchant. His talents were utilised to perfection last season — Forest were set up unashamedly as a counter-attacking team by coach Nuno Espirito Santo and his staff, soaking up pressure and playing on the break. The pace offered by Elanga and fellow wide man Callum Hudson-Odoi was crucial to their attacking plan.

Elanga clearly prides himself on his speed. Just this week, he posted a video on his Instagram account of him apparently clocking 10.93 seconds for a 100m sprint — less than a second and a half outside Usain Bolt’s world record of 9.58, set almost 16 years ago.

How strongly Elanga feels about his pace was obvious when the latest edition of the FIFA video game gave Forest team-mate Ola Aina a higher speed rating than him — 89 to 87.

“I was not happy,” he told The Athletic in a December 2024 interview. “But I don’t take it that seriously because I am actually doing it in the Premier League — and I am the fastest in the dressing room. I’d go as far as saying I am the fastest in the Premier League.”

The statistics do not quite support Elanga’s bold claim — but they are not far away.

So, what do the numbers say, and just how does he use his gift of pace?

Is Elanga the fastest player in the Premier League?

According to official data from the league, the answer is no. But he is definitely in the conversation.

The top speed recorded in the Premier League last season was by Tottenham Hotspur’s Micky van de Ven, who was clocked at 37.12 kilometres per hour (23.06mph). Matheus Nunes of Manchester City was second with a best of 36.72 km/h, with Elanga a fraction behind at 36.66 km/h.

So, while Elanga might not quite be the Premier League’s premier speedster, he does boast the quickest speed recorded by a forward in the 2024-25 campaign.

What else does the data show us?

Charting footballers’ pace is traditionally considered to be difficult statistically, but top speed is not the only metric to consider. By using a couple of other data sets, we can create a clearer picture of the fastest players in the English top flight.

The league keeps a log of the number of sprints undertaken by each player in the division, and Elanga also ranked highly in that table last season — seventh with 730.

Three of the top four spots are filled by full-backs — Crystal Palace’s Daniel Munoz, Antonee Robinson of Fulham and Liverpool new boy Milos Kerkez, who was playing for Bournemouth then. An existing Newcastle wide player, Anthony Gordon, was also among the league’s most frequent sprinters.

The Premier League also keeps tabs on the percentage of playing time that its footballers spend sprinting. Again, Elanga is among the leaders here.

Portuguese youngster Rodrigo Gomes, of Wolverhampton Wanderers, chalked up last season’s highest rate at 1.18 per cent, Gordon came in second at 1.13 per cent and Elanga was third at 1.09 per cent.

So, whatever the metric, it is clear that Elanga is one of the Premier League’s fastest, and most regular, sprinters.

How does he use his pace?

That is the key question because, in football, raw pace alone does not always cut the mustard.

Carlos Forbs, for example, was clocked among the quickest players in the 2024-25 Premier League but was given just 260 minutes of action by Wolves during a season-long loan from Dutch side Ajax because the rest of his game did not hit the levels required.

Elanga, by contrast, employs his speed to affect matches positively, for both Forest and Sweden.

There are times when he uses his raw pace over longer distances to his advantage, such as in this example late in Sweden’s 2-0 away win against Hungary in a friendly last month.

He spots an opportunity to exploit space behind the opposition back line, and his speed is simply too much for Hungary’s Gabor Szalai. However, a wayward final shot by the Swede means Szalai is not punished for losing their race.

But Elanga’s greatest strengths are arguably using his pace intelligently off the ball and using it to travel quickly with the ball at his feet.

His most famous example of the former came at the City Ground in April, when he ran from the halfway line to score against Manchester United, his previous club, leaving defenders, most notably Patrick Dorgu, trailing in his wake.

And a prime example of the latter came against Tottenham Hotspur a year earlier, when he used his pace in short bursts to find space and provide a pinpoint assist for Chris Wood, who scored a simple tap-in.

Elanga might not quite be the Premier League’s fastest speedster, but he could make a strong case to be its most effective one.

(Top photo: Michael Regan/Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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