Pontus Jansson has claimed that Thomas Christiansen’s training methods have shocked the English players during his first few months at Leeds United.
The Dane was appointed at Elland Road in June after Garry Monk quit to take over at Middlesbrough.
Leeds raced out of the starting blocks to top the Championship table last month before a run of four defeats from five league matches was arrested by last weekend’s win at Bristol City.
Jansson is one of the survivors from the side that finished seventh under Monk and explained the eyeopening nature of the sessions formulated by the Englishman’s dugout successor.
“With Thomas it’s different,” Jansson said, as quoted by the Times. “We train harder and longer. It is quite similar to Italy, but some of the English players aren’t used to it.
“If will take time, but we think we are on the way to something good again.”
OPINION
Ultimately, the success or otherwise of Christiansen’s methods will be judged by Leeds’ position at the end of the season. A top-six spot is the publicly stated aim and the manager will have been vindicated if the team reach the end-of-season play-offs. Taskmaster or not, it will matter little if the side cannot go one place better than in 2016-17.