Jesper Lindstrøm: following in the footsteps of Ajax's Great Danes?
- William @WillxFootball
- Apr 29, 2021
- 5 min read
Written by William, @WillxFootball, on April 29th 2021.
Jesper ‘Jobbe’ Lindstrøm, 21, is the latest product of the famous Brøndby youth academy. Other players who came through at Brøndby include legends like Michael Laudrup, Brian Laudrup, Ebbe Sand, Peter Schmeichel, Daniel Agger and current players like Pierre-Emile Højbjerg and Andreas Christensen.
Jesper Lindstrøm, born and raised in Brøndby, used to go to Brøndby Stadium to watch games when he was younger and he’s living the dream. He won’t leave just for the sake of playing in a bigger club or league, but he’ll carefully pick his next club because he’s not in a rush. Jobbe mentioned in an interview in 2020 that his dream has always been to play for Liverpool.
The attacking midfielder has enjoyed a successful season so far and he’s the key player in Brøndby challenging for their first league title since 2005.
This is how he’s doing it
Brøndby’s 3-5-2 on paper looks more like a 3-4-1-2 shape in reality with Lindstrøm playing behind the two strikers. His 20/21 Sofascore heatmap can be seen below.
His role is very free and he’s allowed to do what he feels is necessary to help create goals or to win the ball back in Brøndby’s aggressive Germany-inspired style of football. The fact that one of the biggest and best teams in the country rely on a 21-year-old, says a lot about him.
Straight away, Lindstrøm covers the opponents' defensive midfielders.
His work rate and distance covered is what makes him so exciting to watch. He’s everywhere.
These 4 images show his free role. He’s allowed to find space anywhere on the pitch, and he often makes a lot of runs in behind the opponents' defensive midfielder(s). This gives Brøndby’s other two central midfielders a lot of space to play in if the defensive midfielders follow Lindstrøm. On the other hand, if the DM is hesitating even the slightest, Lindstrøm will have space. This is seen in the last two images.
One-two combination followed by a great run into space he just created. The technique is on point afterwards. Great goal and that adds another one to the visual I created below.
Qualities
1 - Being decisive and dangerous
He has arguably been the best player in the Superliga this season and it’s not just me saying this. Multiple Danish commentators and experts are suggesting the same thing. Brøndby haven’t won a league title since 2005, and Jesper Lindstrøm is absolutely necessary for their title challenge this season. Without his creativity and goal-scoring ability Brøndby wouldn’t be where they are.
2 - He’s optimistic, adventurous and technical
He loves a long shot and he outperforms his xG for a living. The visual below shows Goals-xG and it’s clear how Jesper Lindstrøm is outperforming his xG by a lot.
(credit: @kasperpeders on Twitter)
This season (so far) Lindstrøm has scored 5 goals from outside the box on 32 attempts which is the reason behind his xG-outperformance. Here, I compared him to Kamaldeen Sulemana, who is another exciting prospect in the Superliga. Kamaldeen is also likely to leave for a bigger club this summer, but compared to Lindstrøm, it’s clear who’s the most effective youngster at the moment.
Lindstrøm’s finishing is not average though. This overperformance is without a doubt because of his long shots. Lindstrøm has scored a lot of long-range goals in his career and if he keeps it up, he’ll certainly outperform his xG in most seasons. It remains to be seen if his current overperformance will drop off but he’s certainly not a lucky finisher.
Judging by his technique in general, I don’t think his overperformance is a fluke. His technique is also the reason why he doesn’t hold back with his dribbling, flair and decisive passing. His passing directions show his intentions when he receives the ball. 31% of his passes go forward while 23% go left, 23% go right and 23% go back.
3 - Vision and IQ
He has a good eye for his teammates and his ability to set them up is elite. His eight assists in the league so far prove it. This is also why his somewhat free attacking role is perfect for him. He understands what he needs to do to win games and he does remind me of a more dynamic and explosive Christian Eriksen.
With his clever position in big free spaces and quick thinking, he created 2 assists for Denmark at the U21 Euros.
Weakness
He often jumps sideways from one leg into tackles. This can be easy to bypass if the opponent knows about this. On the other hand, it can look very good if the opponent hasn’t noticed Lindstrøm’s quick press.
Mostly, his tackling isn’t exactly amazing and he has been dribbled past more times (1.0) p90 than the number of tackles he has made (0.9) in the Superliga this season. He’s very aggressive in his pressing and he fits Brøndby’s ‘German style’ of football, but he needs to get his tackling technique right sooner rather than later. At least, he could wait and not jump into the tackle straight away, but this is down to what his manager wants.
National teams
His performances don’t go unnoticed as he has played several times for the Danish U21s and he even debuted for the senior team in November 2020 in a friendly against Sweden. Usually, he isn’t in Kasper Hjulmand’s squad but he was called up when some of the stars weren’t available due to Covid cases and travel restrictions.
At the U21 Euros in 2021, Jesper Lindstrøm played all 3 games, in which he recorded 2 assists. He’ll hope to contribute even more when Denmark play against Germany in the knockout stage of the tournament in June.
Where to go?
As mentioned, Lindstrøm isn’t in a rush. He’ll be more than fine if he stays in Brøndby for another season. With that being said, there will be some bigger European clubs trying to win his signature. He fits into an aggressive pressing style defensively, and a quick adventurous attacking style, where he’s allowed to play a free, so his future team can get the most out of him.
Lindstrøm wouldn’t have any problems fitting into aggressive and optimistic teams like Leeds, Atalanta, Celta Vigo and Leipzig. I could also see him as the long-term replacement for Lars Stindl at Mönchengladbach, if Adi Hütter sticks to the same principles that he had success with at Eintracht Frankfurt. Lindstrøm could be Hütters ‘Daichi Kamada of Mönchengladbach’ as their playing styles and strengths are very similar.
My personal preferred option for him is to follow in the footsteps of many other Danes such as the Laudrup brothers, Jan Mølby, Søren Lerby, Christian Eriksen and Kasper Dolberg. The path from Denmark to Ajax Amsterdam has been walked before and it works.
Mohammed Kudus is another player from the Superliga who recently went to Amsterdam. From next season, Ajax will ‘only’ have four attacking players under the age of 27 in their first team: Mohammed Kudus, David Neres, Antony and Lassina Traoré. Given David Neres’ injury history and Traoré’s contract expiry next summer, I think Jesper Lindstrøm and Ajax is an exciting match. His flexibility allows him to challenge for places in 3 different positions.
It’ll be interesting to follow Jesper Lindstrøm throughout his career. He’s always exciting to watch and whoever signs him, will have a lot of potential on their hands.
Sources: fbref.com, Superliga.dk, Sofascore and footballia.net
Written by William, @WillxFootball.
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