Albion analytics: The lowdown on Pascal Struijk

The left-sided central defender has joined from Leeds United with lots of strings to his bow and plenty of Premier League experience.

Liam Tharme

Albion Analytics

2026-07-25T06:00+01:00

Pascal Struijk played his first game for Albion in the friendly against Wycombe Wanderers. 📷James Boardman

Fabian Hurzeler has added to his centre-back options with the signing of Pascal Struijk on a five-year deal from Leeds United.

Struijk, aged 26, is a versatile defender. Across eight seasons at Leeds — he joined them from Ajax in 2018 after spending most of his formative years with ADO Den Haag — the former Dutch youth international played 140 times at centre-back, also appearing in defensive midfield (14 games) and left-back (28 matches).

He was a constant in an undulating period in Yorkshire, playing under six different head coaches and twice winning promotion from the Championship, most recently in 2024-25, two years after Leeds were relegated from the Premier League.

Last term he helped them to a 14th-place finish, their best for half a decade (since coming 9th under Marcelo Bielsa). Struijk started 33 of 38 games in 2025-26, with only Ethan Ampadu (3,119) and Joe Rodon (2,951) clocking more minutes than his 2,936.

His all-rounded nature — mixing ball-playing qualities with traditional centre-back defending — and left foot proved key when head coach Daniel Farke changed the team from 4-3-3 to 3-4-3/3-5-2 in late November. Leeds earned safety by being hard to beat, with Bournemouth (18 times) the only team to draw more than them (14 times).

Struijk made the most passes by any Leeds player last season (1,839) and, of all left-sided centre-backs in England’s top tier, he ranked fifth for line-breaking passes (201, with Albion captain Lewis Dunk directly above him on 218). Only three central defenders at bottom-half clubs broke lines more than him: Maxence Lacroix at Crystal Palace, Newcastle United’s Malick Thiaw, and Joachim Andersen at Fulham.

We sit down with our new signing Pascal Struijk as he joins Albion ahead of the 2026/27 season. #brightonandhovealbion

Notably, the most-common forward pass combination between two players at Leeds last term was from Struijk to left wing-back Gabriel Gudmundsson (91 times). In the opposition half, Leeds had 37.7% of their attacking touches down the left, a share which was the seventh-highest in the league, and owed in part to Struijk’s passing quality.

“He really showcased what he’s capable of last season — great defensive actions while comfortable on the ball — with his style well suited to ours,” Albion head coach Fabian Hurzeler said on his arrival, noting that Struijk is “exactly the sort of profile he wanted.”

Struijk’s numbers without the ball are interesting depending on how you read them. As a dueller he is a little below his positional average in the league, winning 55.8% of aerial duels (60.3% is standard for a Premier League centre-back). At 6ft 3in he does not lack for size, and this may be down to the sheer volume of his engagement — he contested 197 aerial duels last season, which was the fourth-most for a defender behind Sepp van den Berg (211), James Tarkowski (also 211) and Virgil van Dijk (234).

He clearly can be aerially dominant, recording 31 shots last season, the second-most among his positional peers behind Marc Guehi (32), though he did not score despite those chances being worth three expected goals — the positive sign is he is finding those positions in the first place. Of those efforts, 20 were headers, with Van Dijk (21) the only centre-back to better that.

Struijk made no errors leading to shots or goals in the league in 2025-26, and ranked inside the top five among central defenders for offsides drawn. He boasts a particularly rare profile as a progressive passing left-footer, with those strengths more than compensating for anything he may lack in duels. When at Leeds, Farke once called him the “cornerstone” of their team, and that is exactly what Hurzeler will be hoping for.