The 44-year-old was recently named as Leeds United’s new manager.
Former Leeds United caretaker manager John Carver has been speaking to Radio Yorkshire about new Whites boss Thomas Christiansen.
Carver was briefly in charge at Elland Road back in 2006 and he also has experience coaching in Cyprus at Omonia Nicosia.
As a result he knows former APOEL Nicosia boss Christiansen very well and he explained what he thought when the 44-year-old was named as Garry Monk’s successor at Elland Road.
“I was a little bit surprised,” Carver told Radio Yorkshire. “Obviously Thomas has done very well with APOEL, he won the league, got them to the cup final and got them to the latter stages of the Europa League so I thought he would have stayed there.
“But obviously the attraction of coming to England…he always said to me actually that he would love to come to England so I wasn’t surprise when he was linked with it, but I was a bit surprised when he got the job.”
He would not have been the only one, with Christiansen’s name coming from nowhere after Leeds had been linked with a sizable number of more familiar names.
New Leeds owner Andrea Radrizzani has taken a risk moving for the former Spain striker; however the club are making promising moves in the transfer market and it will be interesting to see how they start the new campaign.
Christiansen’s ambition to manage in England has now been realised, and he will no doubt be hoping his dream does not become a nightmare as it has for so many Leeds managers before him.
That said, there genuinely seems to be a feel-good factor coming back to Leeds, with a new manager, a new owner and some exciting players either already in place or tipped to do so in the coming days.
Christiansen may have been the surprise appointment, but he will be hell-bent on proving his doubters wrong as soon as possible.
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