Rasmus Kristensen 2021/22: What to expect from Leeds United’s latest summer transfer? – scout report

After narrowingly escaping relegation and holding themselves to stay afloat in the top division with Burnley biting the dust, Leeds United are currently in the process of providing their new manager with good signings to help them stay in the Premier League for a fourth consecutive season.

Jesse Marsch managed to keep Leeds United safe after they were amongst the favourites to face the drop right before his predecessor Marcelo Bielsa was sacked. He succeeded the Argentine with whom he shares some similarities in terms of playing style and slightly made some tactical tweaks to help Leeds improve their defence towards the final quarter of the season. 

With the Raphina and Kalvin Phillips attracting a lot of interest from top clubs like Chelsea, Arsenal, etc the onus is on the Leeds’ board to replace them or keep them or even potentially use the sales money to cash in on other prospects.  They have already started their window with the purchase of Brenden Aaronson and have followed it with the signing of 24-year-old Danish right-back, Rasmus Kristensen (D.O.B  11/07/1997) from Salzburg as he will be reuniting with his former coach Marsch. 

This scout report in the form of a tactical analysis discusses the strengths and weakness of Kristensen both in the attack as well as in defence and states how he will be contributing to the tactics and playing style of Leeds United under Marsch. Let’s begin the analysis.

Player Profile

Kristensen is basically a right-back who is pretty much asked to provide the width for his side on the right side. Since Salzburg has predominantly used the 4-3-1-2 system under Matthias Jaissle, the lack of wingers in the formation means that the width is expected to be provided by the full-backs. So both him and the left-back are pretty much key in terms of this in the side. 

In their system, the central midfielders are pretty much positioned to narrow and are mostly involved to deal with the situations happening in the interior. So mostly the forwards are the ones who interchange a lot with the full-backs by making decoy runs to drag players. But Salzburg are also heavily dependent on creating central overloads and they attack entirely through the centre by creating numerical superiorities. Even at times, he moves more towards the central zones due to their emphasis on creating central overloads which can be seen in the image below where he moves to central zones from the wings. 

Also, all the Red Bull teams are built and drilled based on high-intensity defensive plays where the players are also expected to show high intensity. Kristiansen embodies that and is very intense in his defensive actions and always looks to press the opponent very high and in an explosive manner. More of his defensive role will be discussed further in the analysis. 

With Possession of the Ball

On the ball, Kristensen has a very good first touch and neatly brings it down under his control when he receives the ball from his teammates. His angles when he receives the ball are also good and he is pretty adept at receiving the ball in half-turn as well which is important for a full-back hugging the touchline. He drops deeper to help his side build up and is one of their go-to options when they look to progress the ball from the deep.