Coach Jesse Marsch admits his Red Bulls are ahead in their retooling, but he knows their ultimate success relies on getting in sync with big offseason signing Sacha Kljestan.

The Eastern Conference leaders were expected to be closer to the cellar after Thierry Henry retired, Tim Cahill departed and coach Mike Petke was fired. Keeping that up will mean getting Kljestan on the same page with his teammates in his new attacking role — essentially getting his star midfielder to slow down and getting the rest of his team to speed up.

“He knows he needs to get sharper in that way and continue to build on how dangerous he is with the ball and setting plays up around the goal,’’ Marsch said. “But I know that’ll come. That part has been a little bit of an adjustment for him, because at Anderlecht he played a little bit deeper, and he wasn’t always in so many attacking spots. But that part will come along, like everything else has.’’

The Red Bulls have vaulted to second place in weekly league polls on MLSsoccer.com and ESPN, and are first in the analytics-driven Whoscored.com rankings. And that’s all with Kljestan being solid but unspectacular in his new role as the attacking midfielder.

Kljestan, 29, is a US National Team player who regularly has started as a holding midfielder in the UEFA Champions League for Anderlecht, his previous club in Belgium. But he became so used to facing those tactically advanced defenses that close down quickly, he’s subconsciously passed up chances to dribble and punish MLS defenses. In three games he has not logged a goal or assist.

“He’s so used to seeing plays so quickly that he’s played a lot of one- and two-touch in moments where actually he could take more touches, and either be running at defenders or be running in a way so that it’s setting up a pass that can lead to something, lead towards goal,” Marsch said.

“When you play in high-level games in the Champions League, you have to think so quickly and play so quickly because there’s no time and space on the field. I think that’s led to him being very much ahead of plays, but sometimes I think he can slow down and actually take more time, because there’s more time available.’’

While Damien Perrinelle, Bradley Wright-Phillips, Lloyd Sam and Dax McCarty are all ranked in Whoscored.com’s Top 20 league-wide, Kljestan comes in at 108th, his 6.98 rating just 14th in the team and the only Red Bull starter below 7.1.

“I’m just getting used to receiving the ball a bit higher up the field. I need to do a better job of dribbling at the defense to create more space for Bradley,’’ Kljestan told MLSsoccer.com. “The results have been good and we’ve played good soccer, so that’s been great. Obviously I don’t have any goals or assists yet, but that part will come.’’

Marsch has organized practice games with small teams playing in tight spaces to get the Red Bulls thinking quicker.

“Now it’s starting to get built into a lot of our players,” Marsch said. “The byproduct is they’re thinking more, they’re seeing more, they’re thinking faster.’’

Marsch was hopeful Ronald Zubar and Roy Miller can return for the Red Bulls’ next game, on April 11 in Washington, or the following game against San Jose.

The coach said he was looking forward to seeing the Red Bulls II, the club’s franchise in the United Soccer League, play Saturday against Toronto – especially Sean Davis, Connor Lade, Anatole Abang and Karl Ouimette – while the Red Bulls U17 plays in the Generation Adidas final the same day.