After years of turmoil Leeds United are finally emerging from the long, unlit tunnel they entered a decade ago

Interview: Thomas Christiansen tells The Independent about his 'Wikipedia of football', what it means to be Leeds and how his side have become the team to beat in the Championship

Michael Walker
Saturday 16 September 2017 10:35 BST
Comments
Leeds have not been beaten since he took the job
Leeds have not been beaten since he took the job

Thomas Christiansen sat in his Leeds United tracksuit at the club’s rural training ground on Friday lunchtime and declared bluntly: “We are the team to beat, of course.”

Leeds, Leeds, Leeds. On another day, from another manager, it could have sounded triumphalist. But from Christiansen – a mix of Dane and Spain – it was merely a statement of fact.

Leeds are top of the Championship, have not been beaten since he took the job and have not conceded a goal in the league since the opening day at Bolton.

Six consecutive Championship clean sheets have brought stability to the team, an air of revival to the club and they go to Millwall on Saturday as a refreshed, different Leeds United. That, at least, is how it has begun to seem.

Christiansen has seen enough of English football to know it can alter swiftly – “It's very intense, 90 minutes non-stop, where you can have the game controlled and lose it in one minute, three points” – but he expects Leeds to cope with their new, favourites’ status.

Back in January something started to change at the perpetually troubled club, when Andrea Radrizzani became co-owner alongside the volatile Massimo Cellino. It was apparent that morning at Elland Road – as Cellino made a Pinocchio gesture when Garry Monk’s happiness was mentioned – that Radrizzani was bringing some maturity as well as investment to the top table.

When Leeds finished seventh in May, Radrizzani pushed on with the 100 per cent takeover Kenny Dalglish had suggested he make, bought back Elland Road, appointed 44 year-old Christiansen as Monk’s successor, Victor Orta as the new sporting director and oversaw an influx of players for less than the price of selling Chris Wood and Charlie Taylor.

It could have been a mess. But from flux has come order and understanding. Christiansen and his players are attracting attention.

“My ideal of course is to dominate,” he said of his preferred style of play, “to have control of the ball, to play offensive football, attractive but at the same time organised and good in defence – but this is what every coach wants.

Ezgjan 'Gjanni' Alioski celebrates scoring against Nottingham Forest

“But also to be flexible, against Birmingham for example we wanted to dominate but we were unable to do that. In that moment you have to realise you are 1-0 ahead, you are not playing well, you have to ensure the result. Then your tactics have to be different. It’s very important for a coach to have players who can adapt.”

So far they have. Leeds have momentum and Christiansen was offered the opportunity today to say they could be this season’s Huddersfield Town. He replied: “If you see a team who is promoted, the way they are promoted, you would like to be in the same way; but we are Leeds, we are different, we have our ways.”

Simply saying “we are Leeds” will endear Christiansen to a fanbase which thinks it is emerging from a long, unlit tunnel entered in 2004 when the jack-knifed club was relegated from the Premier League.

There is a comparison to be made with their Yorkshire neighbours’ surging start to last season, though: under David Wagner Huddersfield had 16 points after seven games. Leeds have one point more – 10 more than their own start to last season.

And as well as those clean sheets, they have had eight different scorers in the league already.

Assessing the Leeds of last season, Christiansen thought they were “a little direct” with Wood isolated in attack. Wood scored 30 goals, but the next highest total was six and Christiansen has tried to galvanise his midfield to close the gap.

“It was a different situation,” he said of Monk’s side, which finished seventh, five points off the play-offs and 18 off automatic promotion.

“I didn’t know too much about the players in the squad, I had to see them in different games. It was clear that I didn’t see a team in that moment with the confidence to have enough offensive play, it was a little bit direct to Chris Wood and I found him a little alone up front.”

Wood went to Burnley and Pierre-Michel Lasogga arrived on loan from Hamburg. He scored two on his debut.

Another of those eight scorers, another who has hit the ground running in a flat-track division, is the Macedonian Gjanni Alioski. Recruited from Lugano in Switzerland, Alioski provided a picture of quick assimilation and a happy squad.

“I see a good team,” he said, “good characters, it’s very nice, we’re all together. I know it’s a club that wants to do something. There were 31,000 there on Tuesday, in Switzerland I never saw this.”

There is a theory locally that players such as Alioski’s unfamiliarity with Leeds’s recent turbulence is a positive lack of knowledge. The new manager is most certainly focused on 2017, not the past.

Raised in Denmark with a Spanish mother, Christiansen joined Barcelona aged 18. He did not break through at the Nou Camp but he won two caps as a striker for Spain in 1993, playing in the same team as Pep Guardiola and Txiki Begiristain.

Asked today about contact from either man, Christiansen produced a Boycott flat bat. “No, I didn’t speak with them,” he said.

“I had a conversation with Roberto Martinez, a good friend of Julio Banuelos, my assistant, so from that point of view I have some information. But if there’s something I should need, I speak to Victor Orta, he’s the Wikipedia of football.”

To date, Orta’s impact at Leeds is greater than at Middlesbrough. To date, as Christiansen said, Leeds United’s season is “perfect - what I liked, and one of the reasons I’m here probably, is that we all want to work hard to achieve our goals and the illusion is that you can move mountains.”

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in