{"id":560020,"date":"2020-07-28T14:09:35","date_gmt":"2020-07-28T18:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=560020"},"modified":"2020-07-28T14:09:35","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T18:09:35","slug":"josh-laurent-joins-championship-club-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/07\/28\/josh-laurent-joins-championship-club-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"Josh Laurent Joins Championship Club Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After leaving Shrewsbury Town, midfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/f0068e0f\/Josh-Laurent\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Josh Laurent<\/a> has joined Championship club Reading on a two-year deal.<\/p>\n<h2>Reading Confirm the Signing of Josh Laurent<\/h2>\n<h3>Career so Far<\/h3>\n<p>The 25-year-old will be hoping to make more of impression than he did in his previous Championship stint. He joined Wigan Athletic during the 2016\/17 season, but made just one appearance during his time at the DW Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>Laurent has spent much of his career in the lower reaches of the EFL.<\/p>\n<p>Most recently, he enjoyed a two-year spell with Shrewsbury, making 93 appearances during his time with the Shrews.<\/p>\n<p>However, he has also had spells with Newport County and former EFL clubs Hartlepool United and Bury.<\/p>\n<p>While goals are not a natural part of his game, his impressive displays at the heart of the action have earned him a move to the Championship. He has scored just 10 goals so far in his career.<\/p>\n<p>The Royals were not the only club vying for his signature. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.walesonline.co.uk\/sport\/football\/transfer-news\/cardiff-city-swansea-city-stoke-18661430\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wales Online,<\/a> the 25-year-old was also attracting interest from <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/cardiff-city\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cardiff City<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/stoke-city\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stoke City.<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>What Was Said<\/h3>\n<p>Speaking about his new signing to the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.readingfc.co.uk\/news\/2020\/july\/josh-laurent-is-a-royal\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> official Reading website<\/a>, manager Mark Bowen said: &#8220;Josh fits the mould as a hungry, vibrant, energetic young midfielder who I am sure will make an impact at Madejski Stadium. A box-to-box style midfielder, Josh is a talented player whose career I have been tracking for some time, so I am delighted to now welcome him to the club.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Royals Chief Executive Nigel Howe added: &#8220;I\u2019m very pleased to welcome Josh to Reading at the start of what I anticipate will be a very busy summer period as we build a new squad for 2020-21. It is encouraging to get this deal over the line early as we look to construct a new squad capable of achieving more next season. I am looking forward to watching Josh take the next step in his career as a Royal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"RgRUb0Z_QGlVMgJf_vGtzQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1202652371\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'RgRUb0Z_QGlVMgJf_vGtzQ',sig:'AKV0ye0C5lYBTFxMUPGTfyUWNyIlY0XMqLISa8vBebE=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1202652371',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After leaving Shrewsbury Town, midfielder Josh Laurent has joined Championship club Reading on a two-year deal. Reading Confirm the Signing of Josh Laurent Career so Far The 25-year-old will be hoping to make more of impression than he did in his previous Championship stint. He joined Wigan Athletic during the 2016\/17 season, but made just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2795,"featured_media":560022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,33,30,28],"tags":[168,6197,540,1402,136],"class_list":["post-560020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-championship","category-news","category-transfers","tag-efl","tag-josh-laurent","tag-reading","tag-shrewsbury-town","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Ben Robinson, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2795"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}