Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund is a rifler for Ninjas in Pyjamas and is one of the most recognized Counter-Strike players in the world. Unfortunately, NiP has had inconsistent performances for months now and they've felt the need to bring in William "draken" Sundin to replace swap Jacob "pyth" Mourujärvi on the starting lineup.

A few days after the roster change, theScore esports caught up with GeT_RiGhT to talk about the situation surrounding the move and his first impressions of draken.

There's been some criticism over the roster change, I'm sure you're well aware of them. I think Thorin [Duncan "Thorin" Shields] is the one championing the topic, where he says that pyth was not the primary problem and NiP's problems were something more to do with the "core four." Do have any thoughts on that?

To be honest, I haven't even read anything and I never actually do, since it always seems to be more negative feedback. Especially nowadays I just try to be more of a positive person, so I try to avoid it as much as possible.

I read a little bit, but I didn't feel up to it, so I actually just closed down all the links and everything like that, what Thorin said, etc. I've never been up to date with what's being said. I will probably at a later stage, in a month or two maybe, when I feel that I can actually take to it.

So I don't really have an opinion regarding it. People can think or believe what they want to, but they're not inside the team, so they don't know what's going on.

There's a pretty decent talent pool as far as Swedish players, but why did you guys ultimately decide on an up-and-coming player like draken [William "draken" Sundin]?

It was basically our coach THREAT [Björn "THREAT" Pers] who decided that, after reviewing our game for such a time that we needed a main AWPer.

Looking at the talent pool in Sweden, of course you can discuss about if it's doing poorly at the moment or if it's good enough, etc.

According to THREAT, and that's what I trust 100 percent, he said draken's the person we had to get, because he feels he's going to be perfect, in his thinking of how we should be playing and how our system should be working inside of the team. That's purely by him.

I believe and trust his words and that's what we went with.

You say that this is purely THREAT's call, but did any of the other players have any say in that as well?

I can't really speak about what anyone else on my team talks about or what they think, I can only say my own opinion, and I trust THREAT in whatever he says. When he joined the team back in 2016, his word is our law, basically, so I go with whatever he decides.

Björn "THREAT" Pers has been NiP's coach since January 2016

What are some of your first impressions of draken? Have you guys been able to play scrims or practice?

We have been playing with him for a few days this week and it's just been positive feedback. I like that he's a very hungry, he's very nice as a person and he's very open as well. And people may think that we are deciding everything that he should be doing, but he takes his own decisions.

We basically let him do whatever he wants to do and what he feels for, that's the easiest way to start when you have a new player into the team. At least that's what I go with and believe in, then after a certain time you think about what's best for the team. If it's not working, or if it's good enough, then you're still working with the same goals.

It's just been positive things and positive attitudes and everyone is hungry. I have nothing bad to say about him.

How is preparation for SL i-League going?

I'm just practicing every day, five times a week. We are doing a big bootcamp before the end of March and doing an extra day. We usually do three days, but we're going to do four so that we're putting in more time with draken. And we're just aiming to do good results.

There's no real big thing, anything special, since he's a new player in the team. We just have to make everything nice for him, make everything nice for us as well and just working with the team.

We're renewing ourselves, to a point, but also making things perfect for draken.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.