Jesse Marsch before Southampton says rabbits can play pianos - The Square Ball 31/3/22

HASENHUTTL FOR DINNER

Written by: Rob Conlon

The last time we heard from Jesse Marsch, he was telling us Pat Bamford and the rest of the players injured at Wolves were all fine. We now know Pat is broken, but Marsch started his press conference ahead of this weekend’s fixture against Southampton by telling us all the injured players are, in their own way, fine.

Raphinha has recovered from Covid, as have some of the staff at Thorp Arch who we didn’t even know had it. Junior Firpo is ahead of schedule in his rehab. Leo Hjelde is back in training. Jamie Shackleton is back in training too, but on his own. Tyler Roberts is “looking good and feeling good” ahead of his return in the summer. Kalvin Phillips and Liam Cooper are in contention to start against Southampton. And as for Pat:

“Personally I was really disappointed that this happened to Patrick, that this is the way that it ended up. We felt like we were trying to create a progression that protected him in a good way, but this injury is a tricky one for anyone who’s ever had it before. It’s not so straightforward. And often how to manage the pain, how to get through every moment so that you’re progressing but not over-stressing, is not so easy to get the balance right. And unfortunately he ruptured a small part of it [his plantar fascia].

“Upon visiting some experts, they’ve actually said that it’s the best thing that could have happened to him long term, which is a funny thing to say, but it relieved a lot of the pressure and the stress and the pain that he had in that area and he’s actually already feeling better than he felt before. We’re hopeful that this six week prognosis that we gave is accurate. And we have to then, I think, put him on a new progression that gets him healthy, strong and back to 100%.”

It’s good to know those experts have been reading Moxcow’s latest blog post. That’s Bamford’s physical state, but how is he coping mentally given he was so upset after being substituted at Wolves?

“Patrick is an energetic, positive person, and I think maybe that was part of the disappointment. He was so committed to getting himself playing again and helping the team that when he felt that it wasn’t right, it was really difficult for him to handle. But almost the next day he was already positive again, and thinking about what we can do to still find a way to get him back healthy and still thinking about how we can contribute into the season, and obviously he wants to give himself a chance to compete for a position in the World Cup team. So I think in every way, we want to make sure that we get him back to being at 100%, and we believe we can now.”

Apparently Bamford is still determined to play in the final two games of the season because he’s desperate to get into that World Cup squad. (Does he know it’s not until November?) Please don’t run before you can walk, Pat. That’s what got you into this trouble in the first place.

He was consoled on the bench at Wolves by Cooper and Phillips, and at least one of those will be on the bench again against Southampton. Neither is fit enough to play ninety minutes yet, so Marsch says he won’t start both as he doesn’t want two of his three substitutions to be pre-meditated before the game begins. Premier League clubs met on Thursday to discuss increasing the number of allowed changes to five so Jürgen Klopp will stop crying for a minute, and Jesse thinks that is a good idea. The substitutions that is, he didn’t say anything about crying Klopp:

“I am in favour of that. And I believe that it helps the game, it makes games faster, more intensive. For me it also helps when you’re developing [young] players that they can have more playing time. You know, right now, I came from a situation where for two years I was operating with five substitutions. Now going back to three, it’s an interesting feeling. I feel handcuffed more on the bench by not being able to affect the game as much by putting in more fresh players and still being aggressive in the match, so I think it helps the quality of the game. I’ve heard the argument that yeah, the better teams have better rosters, but there’s also the argument that the better teams have a better eleven. So the better teams are better. I understand that but in the end I like, especially with the way we play in the aggression that we like to use, I like having more fresh players on the pitch than fewer.”

One player who might be starting against Southampton is Joe Gelhardt, who trained this week after a back spasm. Jesse said exactly what Twitter wants to hear about Joffy, who has been bullying his former Under-23s teammates in a training match:

“He has to play. Young players have to play in order to improve and he has the quality to do so. So I’m not so concerned about it. I believe in him entirely. And I know he’s going to get better and better and when we had a little bit of a test match on Friday played really well. We played basically the first team against the 23s for 45 minutes, which Kalvin and Liam both played 45 minutes in that stretch. And I think at the end of the 45 minutes it was 10-2. And Joffy played great in that moment. He had, I think, a goal or two and it was a strong performance from the front four guys. They were incredibly powerful and direct and aggressive.”

Joffy has to play more, but that doesn’t mean Jesse wouldn’t mind a new striker or two — who needs wingers, right! — although he’ll leave exactly who for Victor Orta to worry about:

“Victor and I are having a scouting meeting next week, because most of his scouts were out watching games during the international break. We’ve had some discussions already. I don’t know exactly how it worked when Marcelo was here, but I understand that my role is to be the manager. And then we have a sports director and a group of scouts that look at how to build within our team. So I like to give profiles of the types of players that I like, and then I like the sport director and the scout to work diligently to do their jobs and then present players. And then we work through it together and we make decisions together. Because I find that it’s really important that when new players come that everyone is fully aligned so that it’s not like, ‘Well this player belongs to this sport director or this scout or this manager.’

“In terms of the [striker] position I think we have some talented players there and I think we have some flexibility with all the players that we have up front. But yeah, we might need to look to find another attacker or two and one specifically that is a number nine, that is a possibility. But we will discuss that more next week. And maybe I can answer that question better next week as well.”

That might need to be three attackers if Raphinha buggers off to Barcelona. Marsch is yet to ask Rapha if he wouldn’t mind telling Deco to shut his mouth. Nobody asked Jesse if he’s told Fabrizio Romano to keep his nose out though, so fingers crossed:

“Speaking about this little game we had, Raphinha was incredible in the 45 minutes. He, for me, is a massive talent. A massive talent. And my challenge, despite all of the things that are being said on the outside, is to have the type of relationship with him where he and I can focus on his development and him doing everything he can to help the team and to continue to get better while he’s here. I haven’t said a word with him about Deco, Barcelona, any of these things. Everybody knows it’s out there, and for me it should be because he’s a fantastic, fantastic player. I want him to become the player that I know he can. I think everyone sees here how talented he is, how committed he is, how hard he can run, how confident of a young man he is. You know everyone here wants to enjoy the football that we can play with him and of course we want to convince him to stay as long as we can. Because he’s so good. He’s a fantastic player and a really good person.”

Speaking about transfers, Jesse pointed at the elephant in the room wearing a Brenden Aaronson shirt, and held his hands up like a shoplifter talking to a security guard while a load of Red Bull cans fall from underneath his jumper:

“I can tell you the whole talk with Brenden Aaronson, this all happened before I even came here. Now I know Brenden, I coached him and he’s an American, and I think he’s a great player. But even when he came to Salzburg, Salzburg found him or knew about him before and came to me before he even came, and then we worked together to think this was the right player for us. So that’s how I like to work and that’s what I think is really important with scouting.”

The press conference ended with a big burp of taurine as Marsch spoke about spending six or seven weeks as a “fly on the wall” of Ralph Hasenhuttl when the Southampton manager was in charge of Fizzy Leipzig. Ralph Rabbithutch is a “gentleman”, obviously, and once invited Jesse for dinner at his house and played him a song on the piano.

A quick Google tells me Ralph is apparently a big fan of Depeche Mode, and it’s fun to think of him sitting Jesse down in front of the piano, crunching on an After Eight, and clanging away at the opening riff to Just Can’t Get Enough. If Jesse wants any tactical advice from me, I’d stick fellow Depeche Mode obsessive and former Leeds full-back Dylan Kerr behind Southampton’s dugout on Saturday. Hassenhuttl will be too distracted arguing with Dylan about whether the album Violator is better than Songs of Faith and Devotion for his team to stand a chance.