Anyone who has watched Sean Longstaff play will understand why his name appears in sentences also featuring the words balance, poise, vision and assurance.
Perhaps a little part of that is due to the year in which Newcastle’s midfielder of the moment spent every spare hour virtually living on an ice rink in Stockholm where his father, David, starred for Djurgården, one of Sweden’s leading ice hockey teams.
By the time he returned to north-east England and began playing football for North Shields juniors, Sean was still only five but, already, his game seemed unusually well calibrated. For one so young, his calmness under pressure suggested that something of the Stockholm ice had transported itself into his veins.