Leeds United youngster with questionable outfits 'not a centre-back yet' but learning rough trade

Still only 19, the Nottingham-born Norwegian has this season added Championship experience to the Scottish Premiership and Premier League match minutes earned at Ross County and Leeds.

He was a Celtic player when he joined the Staggies and caught the eye in 12 senior outings that still form the bulk of his professional CV. For Leeds, who he joined in August 2021, he made five first team appearances prior to securing a loan move to the Millers this season.

Premier League talent is no guarantor of success when a young player joins an EFL club. Charlie Cresswell's time at Millwall looks likely to be reflected upon as a tremendous bit of business for parent and loan club, but it was not without its sticky patch. You don't have to look far elsewhere in the group that went out on loan this season to see that it doesn't always yield the desired results.

Rotherham boss Matt Taylor believes it takes more than just footballing ability to cut it when stepping into the EFL from a Premier League outfit.

"What they've had previously in terms of exposure, have they been in full first team environments and most importantly, you want to know what their character is like," he said.

"We knew he had been out on loan in Scotland, there were already some boxes ticked.

"Young players will always have dips in form as their bodies react in different ways to the rigours of Championship football. It's a totally different beast to under-21 level. Even training is too, to a certain extent. But if the quality is there and they have a bit of time to fine-tune certain aspects, there's no reason why young loans can't learn and improve. Anyone, managers and fans included, have to understand there will always be a moment of coming off their top performance but they come back better for that experience."

Hjelde's loan has brought the game time that Leeds envisaged when they put together their 2022/23 plan for the teenager and, more crucially, the development that needs to come with it.

"The games have taught him the most, the opposition and his team-mates," Taylor told the YEP.

"He's learned how he's got to be physical first and foremost and move his full speed first as opposed to chasing the speed of the game and to keep being a front-foot player. He plays better when he's on his front foot and meeting the action at its earliest possible point. There's also all the inner details of playing left centre-half, left-back, left-wing-back, defending the back post and marking on set-pieces. He's having to mark players who are physically stronger than himself. That's something he won't have done previously. He's coming up against wingers who are quick and tricky and have got different deliveries off both feet. He's constantly learning and he'll learn an awful lot more in the next eight games."

Getting to where he needs to be will require Hjelde to grow off the field as much as on it but Taylor has no concerns about the way the Leeds man has settled into the dressing room at Rotherham.

"He sometimes comes in a questionable outfit and the lads give him a bit of stick for that," said the boss.

"He's a good personality; a mature head on young shoulders. His dad [ex-Forest defender Jon Olav Hjelde] was a big part in his upbringing and footballing development. He's been around football for a long time.

"Like with a lot of Scandinavians, his English is so fluent and he's fitted in really well. Sometimes I go into the physio room or the changing room and he and Viktor [Johansson, Rotherham goalkeeper] are speaking. I don't know what the language is. It's probably a mixture between Norwegian and Swedish. I don't have a clue what they're saying."

Around a third of the time, neither Johansson nor Hjelde have a clue what is being said either, but the pair have hit it off so well that the Leeds defender's arrival has had a nostalgic effect on the Swedish goalkeeper.

"He's been brilliant since he came in," Johansson told the YEP.

"It's not easy for a young pro to come into a club and fit right in. He's done that. Outside the pitch he's been brilliant, on the pitch he's been brilliant. It's a good changing room to come into, that helped him get settled quick, but he's a great character to have around.

"He speaks Norwegian to me and I speak Swedish to him. We understand each other probably 60, 70 per cent of the time and then the other 30 we just laugh at each other. It works fine. I think it has helped him settle. It's helping me loads as well. When it's just us two we chat in our own language and it feels like going back in time, being 13 or 14 in the changing room just chatting about weird stuff."

Off the pitch Johansson finds Hjelde hilarious when he loses his 'guard' and acts like 'the kid he is.' On the pitch the Norwegian has shown a maturity that his 24-year-stopper appreciates just as much.

"He's very mature," said Johansson.

"I spoke to him about this the other day, he sees play seconds before it happens, he knows everything before it actually happens which is a very good ability to have so young. He's so much older than he actually is, on the pitch. He's learning the other side of the game as well. The toughness, he's learned that quite a bit, it's toughened him up. He's winning his headers, clearing balls, doing that side for us."

The 'other' side of the game is going to be key for Hjelde if he is to move inside from a wider role. To date he has split his senior career appearances between centre-back and left-back, or left wing-back. At Rotherham, though, Taylor doesn't yet believe him physically suited to a central position.

"He's not a centre-back yet," said Taylor.

"I expect that when he gets to the middle part of his career he'll be able to play in the middle of the pitch. In relation to the Championship and the physical nature of the opposition centre-forwards and the physical nature of it he's not there as yet. He will probably play the majority of his career in a more central position. For ourselves, left-back definitely suits him. The left of a back three would suit him, as would left wing-back. He needs to be more on the outside just to offset a bit of the crash, bang, wallop which happens in the middle of every single game in the middle of every single pitch at Championship level."

Helping to keep Rotherham at Championship level would represent a highly satisfactory bookend to this chapter of Hjelde's career, before the Elland Road debate over his next step begins.

Taylor is satisfied that, so far, the Leeds United man has shown the right attitude to play his part for the collective, in order to progress as an individual.

"We like to think we have a good working environment and he's bought into that," said Taylor.

"We had a good catch-up before he went away [with Norway Under 21s], we had a good catch-up when he wasn't starting. He understood it. He just wants to improve. I'm excited to see what level he can get to in the future."