It has been reported that Danish right back Rasmus Kristensen has agreed terms with the club and our bid of €10m is likely to be accepted by his present club, RB Salzburg

According to transfer expert Fabrizio Romano Leeds are ‘one step away’ from signing Kristensen, who has been described as “the best defender in the Austrian league.” The right-back scored 10 goals and provides eight assists in the season that has just finished, which is incredible for a defender.

Kristensen is 24 and a Denmark international and has been at Salzburg since 2019, having signed for Austrian club at the same time that Jesse Marsch arrived as head coach, and the two were together for the following two years. He is on international duty with Denmark, who have a couple of Nations League games to play in the next few weeks.

Borussia Dortmund were also keen on signing Kristensen, and there was inevitable interest from Brentford, who obviously thought they don’t have enough Scandinavians on their books already. But it looks like his previous connection with Jesse Marsch has won the day, and the player would rather stick with what he knows and come to Elland Road.

Leeds decided to make a move for another right-back once it became clear that there would be no other experienced options for that position during the opening stages of the new season. Luke Ayling had knee surgery two weeks ago and could be absent for up to four months, even though his dismissal at Arsenal enabled the operation to be performed a couple of weeks ahead of schedule.

Stuart Dallas has stood in at right back when needed on occasions, but the severity of his injury means that we won’t be seeing him in action at any time before the new year. But it’s disappointing that we’re not going to take the opportunity to play Codeh Drameh in that position after his impressive performances on loan at Cardiff.

Drameh is now 20, so he must be getting to the stage when he is ready to step up to play in the Premier League. He has already told WalesOnline that "If I'm not promised game-time then I don't really want to be waiting around.” Given the amount of effort Leeds have put into the youth set up and the quality of the teams we have had in different age groups, we don’t want to fritter it away by not giving our best young players the chance to make their mark in the first team.

Yet according to Phil Hay, Leeds have also been tracking Aberdeen’s 18-year-old Calvin Ramsay. He has also interested Liverpool and is likely to be heading there rather than to Leeds, but the fact that we have even been looking at another young right back doesn’t augur well for Drameh’s prospects at Elland Road.

There is a lot of other work going on behind the scenes to refresh the squad before the new season, so watch this space.

Reuters

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