After Alonso departure and Ten Hag disaster, Hjulmand is working miracles at Leverkusen

The very fact that Bayer Leverkusen go into Saturday evening’s Bundesliga clash with Borussia Dortmund as potential favourites for the match is a sign of how far the club have come under new head coach Kasper Hjulmand in a short period of time. While Niko Kovac’s side have dropped points in three of their last five league matches, Leverkusen have won four and could put a four-point gap between themselves and the 2024 Champions League finalists. And it’s no small part down to the Danish tactician in the Leverkusen dug out.

After a surprising win 2-0 over Manchester City in the Champions League on Tuesday night, Hjulmand has now won 10, drawn three and lost just two of his opening 15 games at the Bundesliga side. That, unsurprisingly, has led to Leverkusen flying up the Bundesliga table and as the graphic below illustrates, no other club aside from Bayern Munich have actually won more points in the German top-flight since Hjulmand took on the job ahead of matchday three of the season. Which is an impressive feat in itself, but even more so when we consider the turmoil that he inherited when he replaced Erik Ten Hag just a few weeks into the new league campaign.

In the summer transfer window Leverkusen were subject to an unprecedented degree of interest in their players, which saw no less than seven senior players in last season’s team depart the club for just under €230 million - including Florian Wirtz's record-breaking move to Liverpool for €125m. The German side reacted quickly to this exodus of talent by spending €198m on 14 new players for their first team squad, whilst also hiring the aforementioned Ten Hag to replace Xabi Alonso. And it didn’t go well.

Whether due to the sheer turnover of players or emboldened by his own managerial ability, Ten Hag arrived at the BayArena and immediately attempted to shoe-horn Leverkusen’s new-look squad into his age-old 4-3-3 system. It failed immediately, with Leverkusen losing their opening-day clash to Hoffenheim and then threw away a 3-1 lead at Werder Bremen to draw 3-3. Just a few days after the draw in Bremen, Ten Hag was sacked and Hjulmand was convinced to take over and put out the fires.

Unlike his predecessor, Hjulmand has never been especially wedded to certain tactics or formations and approached the major problems at Leverkusen by reverting back to what had worked under Alonso. The back four was scrapped for a return to a back three, key playmaker Alejandro Grimaldo was reinstated as a left wing-back, Aleix García was promoted to passer-in-chief in the centre of the pitch following the departure of Granit Xhaka and Patrik Schick returned to his role as target man in attack.

As such, Hjulmand has been able to rely on the key players he inherited from last season’s squad to help implement many of the exciting, young players Leverkusen signed in the summer. In goals Mark Flekken has overcome some early jitters to prove himself as a safe pair of hands, the back line has been bolstered by new central defenders Jarell Quansah and Loïc Badé, while Ernest Poku, Christian Kofane, Ibrahim Maza and Malik Tillman have all played a part in compensating for the departures of Wirtz & Co.

Whether Leverkusen will challenge for another league title anytime soon is certainly up for debate. But in a short period of time, Hjulmand has not only steadied the ship after Ten Hag’s disastrous spell but also quickly pointed the club back towards the top of the Bundesliga table. And with a squad packed full of exciting, young talents, Leverkusen and Hjulmand may end up surprising many in Germany and perhaps in the Champions League too in the second half of the season.