What Rasmus Kristensen will bring to Leeds: Pace, strength and defensive intensity - The Athletic 8/6/22
By Phil Hay and Mark Carey
A few short weeks ago, Rasmus Kristensen to Borussia
Dortmund looked like a done deal. The word in football recruitment circles was
that both parties were about to settle on each other, lining up a transfer
which would give Dortmund a new right-back and Kristensen the greater exposure
of the German Bundesliga.
Leeds United were under the impression that an agreement was
as good as sealed but they were in the market for a right-back too, with Red
Bull Salzburg’s Kristensen at the top of their list. Head coach Jesse Marsch
knew the Denmark international from their two years together at the serial
Austrian champions and told Leeds that Brenden Aaronson aside, no player on his
former employers’ books appealed to him more. Kristensen was an ideal target —
if the club were able to intervene.
Victor Orta, Leeds’ director of football, stepped in with last-minute overtures, making the kind of detailed pitch every potential addition to the squad at Elland Road receives. He could not offer some of what Dortmund would give Kristensen — Champions League action next season, most of all — but by virtue of a final-day salvage act away to Brentford, Leeds were able to promise him Premier League football, and regular games at that level. Kristensen’s receptive reaction was an example of the English game’s pulling power.
Terms were agreed with the player and Salzburg last week and
permission secured from the Danish FA for Kristensen to leave the international
squad’s Nations League camp briefly to travel to Leeds for a medical yesterday.
In accepting a five-year contract, Kristensen becomes signing number two at
Elland Road, fresh on the heels of Salzburg team-mate Aaronson and changing the
complexion of Marsch’s squad once more.
Leeds were targeting a right-back in no small way because of
injuries to first-choice Luke Ayling and his regular back-up, Stuart Dallas.
Both underwent surgery before the end of last season, with the latter having a
major procedure on a fractured femur. Dallas is likely to be missing until the
end of the calendar year, and Leeds are not confident of having Ayling back for
the start of next season after his knee operation.
That position in Leeds’ team, though, is about more than
absences. Ayling turns 31 in August, Dallas did so in April, and their scrape
with relegation proved that the core of a squad who have carried the club
forward over the past four years will not last forever. Kristensen, 25 in July,
represents the start of a phased change on the right side of Leeds’ defence — a
full international heading into his prime years.
Leeds have tried Jamie Shackleton at the position and
20-year-old Cody Drameh is returning this summer from a half-season’s loan at
Cardiff City, a loan which saw him start all 22 Championship matches he was
available for, but the £10 million acquisition of Kristensen implies that
neither is fancied as a starter there in the near future.
Most of Kristensen’s football has come in his homeland and
Austria, with Midtjylland and Salzburg respectively, either side of 18 months
in the Netherlands with Ajax. Ajax was a major leap for him but Kristensen did
not settle as he thought he might in Amsterdam and took it upon himself to
leave in 2019 for Salzburg, where Marsch was newly installed as manager.
The change of scene proved the making of him, restoring
confidence and developing his game. Last season he took the position of
vice-captain, understudy to the highly-experienced Andreas Ulmer, and a
relatively low asking price made him an attractive proposition as this transfer
window drew close.
“I never saw (leaving Ajax) as a risk,” Kristensen told The
Athletic after completing his medical. “When I came to Ajax there were a lot of
things I had to improve, especially with the ball in possession, and I did that.
That’s what Ajax are really good at, teaching you it all. But I realised that
to be the best version of myself, I had to play in a system that acknowledged
my strengths a little bit more.
“At the time, Salzburg was the perfect fit. I was young, I
was guaranteed Champions League football and I saw it as a great option. It’s
difficult to say exactly what switches something on inside you but I felt like
I went to the right place at the right time. I was a perfect fit with the
mentality of the club and I got 100 per cent confidence back.”
Marsch was influential in invigorating his career and a
reason for him choosing Leeds over other options. “He was a big factor for me
at Salzburg,” Kristensen said. “A manager is the guy with the decisions to make
and he made the right ones for me.”
Kristensen’s transfer to Leeds is his first foray into one
of Europe’s top five leagues but he has developed into a hardened, feisty
professional with a reputation for strong running and good attacking output.
Those traits were fundamental at Leeds while Marcelo Bielsa
was head coach and as the Argentinian liked to point out, full-backs and
wingers are essentially the same thing these days. Whichever way successor
Marsch intends to set Leeds up when the games start again in August, he cannot
do without a right-sided defender who pushes on as positively as Ayling always
has.
“I feel like now I’m better in all facets of the game than I
was when I left Ajax,” Kristensen said. “I’m more mature, I’m more experienced.
When I went to Ajax I’d never played in European competition. In Salzburg I’ve
had 25 games in the Champions League. There’s a big difference in being an
important player at the highest level. And of course, in the Premier League
it’s like a Champions League game every weekend.”
With Salzburg, Kristensen, like fellow newcomer Aaronson,
had the advantage of playing for the country’s strongest team, a side who have
been untouchable domestically for over a decade — it’s now nine titles in a
row, and in the other year they were runners-up — and have the class and depth
to stay on the front foot constantly.
Nonetheless, it is evident from his performances that
playing end-to-end and taking up high positions comes naturally to him.
He tries to create scenarios, as seen below in graphics from a game against Rapid Vienna, where a pass from a deep midfield zone finds him offering himself as virtually the front man, able to get in behind and send cut-backs into the opponents’ box. Those areas are where he likes to roam.
Kristensen is relatively quick, strong against challenging opponents and able to use a touch of explosive pace to force openings in front of him.
In this next example, against Austria Klagenfurt, his
positioning causes similar discomfort for the opposing defence, taking
advantage of Salzburg sucking players in with a short pass towards the final
third.
Kristensen goes looking for space and finds it, allowing him
to curl an early cross towards a runner inside Klagenfurt’s covering line.
These situations are seen time and again watching him play, and paint the picture of a full-back who will push on whenever the game allows him to.
Unsurprisingly, Kristensen delivers impressive attacking numbers.
Irrespective of his defensive qualities, the creativity of a
full-international full-back who was available for £10 million was always going
to attract the interest of major European clubs.
The following Smarterscout pizza chart details his
strengths: a strong expected goals (xG) ratio from the chances he creates, a
similarly good xG figure from his progression of the ball and a relentless
effort to get himself into the opposition’s box.
He is also good at getting shots off, a trait which displayed itself during his eight appearances in last season’s Champions League.
Salzburg came through a play-off against Brondby from his
homeland to make the group stage and would reach the last-16 for the first
time, eventually losing heavily to Bayern Munich.
Over the course of their European campaign, Kristensen
produced 16 efforts on goal, more than any other full-back who completed 500
minutes or more in the competition — including Trent Alexander-Arnold, who went
all the way to the final with Liverpool.
Leeds are getting a defender who, when the chance presents itself, will hunt for goals in the Premier League. He had an average of one in every seven league games for Salzburg.
The opportunities that fell to Kristensen in the 2021-22
Champions League were fairly low in quality but they were generated by his
habit of taking up good positions in the final third.
The next graphic shows that all but two of his 16 attempts
came from inside the 18-yard box, demonstrating Kristensen’s propensity to
gamble and involve himself in attacks.
Some of the 16 were headers from set-pieces, an added string
to his bow at 6ft 2in.
He is unlikely to have as much freedom to take risks going forward with Leeds as he did with a side as consistently dominant as Salzburg were domestically, but this mindset is what coaches look for in a modern full-back.
Time and again in the Austrian top flight, his running
helped make Salzburg tick.
His style varies between early moves up the field,
identified earlier in this article, and more delayed overlaps, as demonstrated
in the following grabs from a match against Rapid Vienna.
By arriving from deep, timing his run to avoid an offside
flag and then turning up the speed to get beyond his marker, he creates an
opening from which Rapid are vulnerable.
In this instance, his cross into the area failed to pick out a team-mate and Rapid were able to clear but it could easily have led to a goal.
Often, the pressure of those runs tells in a more effective way.
Here, in a different fixture against Rapid, his burst in behind and cross to the far post sets up a chance which Karim Adeyemi finishes at the back post. It is no bad sign that with three away points surely already secured at 2-0 up in the 95th minute, Kristensen is still looking for chances to hit the byline, his energy undiminished.
There are moments, too, where Kristensen can use his physical strength to open up defences.
Here, against Austria Vienna, the visitors have him tightly marked outside their box but Salzburg have plenty of players up front waiting on a ball in and Kristensen keeps the momentum alive by muscling past his man, driving forward and delivering a low ball which Salzburg convert from close range. He will need that sort of aggression and physicality to make a go of his transfer to the Premier League.
Attacks like the one above are tailor-made for strikers who look for deliveries at close range, something Patrick Bamford is good at doing. Leeds’ interest in Eddie Nketiah of Arsenal — albeit interest which was doomed to failure — was a beeline for the sort of poacher who Kristensen’s style should service frequently.
Adeyemi scored a league-best 19 goals in Salzburg’s 32-game campaign last season to earn his own switch to Dortmund — including the next finish, which came after Kristensen left his opposition full-back for dead with a give-and-go. Kristensen ended 2021-22 with four domestic assists in 29 appearances and recorded another against Wolfsburg in the Champions League.
For all his attacking quality, however, Leeds need him to be an adequate defender too; ideally, someone who improves their dangerously porous back line.
Leeds have just endured a horrible season defensively,
conceding 79 goals in the 38 league games (only rock-bottom Norwich allowed
more) and suffering a raft of punishing defeats. Salzburg, in contrast, shipped
19 in 32, keeping 16 clean sheets and losing only twice on the way to winning
their latest Austrian title — a sharp demonstration of the change in environment
Kristensen is about to experience.
Not that Salzburg avoided poor results entirely — their
Champions League adventure ended in an 8-2 aggregate hammering by Bayern that
saw them concede seven in the second leg in Bavaria — but outside of Europe,
they came under very little pressure.
Ayling, who has been Leeds’ preferred right-back since he
joined from Bristol City in the summer of 2016, is not perfect defensively and
Leeds suffered from obvious frailty down their flanks last season but he is a
strong and committed competitor.
While his profile is similar to Kristensen’s going forward, Ayling defends in a way which creates a high volume of interceptions, blocks and clearances. He can be effective at disrupting attacks against him, an all-action attitude which suited long stretches of the Bielsa era.
Kristensen’s style is more focused on getting tight to his
man, as displayed by his higher defending intensity rating (66 to Ayling’s 45).
The Dane tries not to over-commit or to dive into tackle after tackle,
preferring to read the game and look for interceptions.
His ball retention score shows room for improvement, though
those numbers may be due to a Salzburg tactical strategy which looks to profit
from counter-pressing and moments where they lose possession.
Kristensen’s duel ratings show that when he does commit to a
tackle, more often than not he has the strength and the judgment to come out on
top. He is strong in the air both in open play and from dead balls — a quality
Leeds have lacked, particularly when facing set pieces — and he has featured in
a back four with Salzburg and a back five with Denmark.
“I see myself as a player who leaves everything out there,
doing whatever it takes,” Kristensen said. “I feel like that’s my biggest strength.
I’ve got a good physique, I can run up and down a lot but I think my biggest
strength is my power and my willingness to go the extra mile, as you say.
“Attacking play was asked of me a lot in Salzburg and I fitted well into that. I’ve got a feeling it’s something I’ll have to put into our game at Leeds. I’m comfortable with that. I like to attack.”
At his best, Kristensen should bring quality and a bit more
backbone to Leeds, two things they have been short of in their second Premier
League term.
He has also been largely injury-free in three years with
Salzburg, and his arrival solves a selection issue which would have been
awaiting Marsch on the first weekend of the new campaign.
Kristensen will not be the most expensive deal of the summer
but this transfer has the potential to be shrewd, bringing in a footballer with
Champions League and international experience, and attributes which appealed to
notable teams elsewhere, all for a reasonable price tag. In terms of moving
Leeds forward, it should be a step in the right direction.