Only two options open to Leeds United amid short-term pain for long-term gain transfer strategy - YEP 4/10/22

Leeds United went into this season in the full knowledge that there would be big lessons to learn.

By Graham Smyth

They also went into the campaign knowing that there could be short-term pain en route to long-term gain.

A late September study from the CIES Football Observatory spelled out exactly why this is the case. Leeds United, it said, are the eighth youngest team in Europe's 'big five' leagues.

An average age of 25.24 is higher than only two other Premier League sides - Southampton and Arsenal - with more than half of the Whites' top flight minutes being accounted for by players aged between 22 and 25.

That age profile gives the appearance of Leeds being in somewhat of a sweet spot. Enough players are on the right side of their peak years to still boast potential, room for improvement and that dirtier-than-it-ought-to-be word saleability.

It's very much intentional.

A 25-year-old team should be an energetic one, well able to play a physically demanding style in a physically demanding division, and Jesse Marsch has a track record of working with players yet to enter their prime.

The average age of the team Marsch sent out to face Villa on Sunday was exactly 25 and contained three players of that age and under, with whom he has previously worked.

"I've now become a manager that coaches a lot of young players and I've coached a lot of really, really good, highly talented young players and helped them in their lives and in their careers," he said afterwards.

It was a game that showed the other factor to be considered when it comes to this Leeds side. They are relatively inexperienced when it comes to the Premier League, and that's not just the new boys - even 31-year-old captain Liam Cooper is yet to reach the 50-game mark in the English top flight.

The summer recruitment brief was to bring in players who could play Marsch's football in the Premier League without costing the kind of fees associated with those already playing in it.

Luis Sinisterra, for example, cost less than half of what Leeds sold Raphinha for and you would be hard pressed to argue the Colombian is less than half as good. You certainly could not argue that Sinisterra is incapable of going on to become as deadly in the Premier League as Raphinha was.

Of course Sinisterra has to learn the English game, as Raphinha did so well and so quickly, and Sunday's game taught him a lesson.

The red card he earned was the first of his career and he now knows, through painful experience, that you must play differently on a yellow.

It was a scenario reminiscent of one that occurred for the Under 23s last season, when Charlie Cresswell forgot he was on a caution and committed another yellow-card-worthy infraction. Once is forgivable, for a young and inexperienced player, but twice would not be.

Elsewhere in the side, Brenden Aaronson learned that he will not get the protection he needs all the time in England and in order to stay fit and healthy for Leeds and the US Men's National Team he's going to have to protect himself.

He was successful with just one of his 16 pressures against Villa and just like fellow RB Salzburg old boy Rasmus Kristensen, is finding out just how good you have to be to win back or keep the ball in this division. Where Aaronson is discovering how stubborn and organised defences can be, Kristensen is becoming acutely aware of how relentless Premier League wingers can be. The Dane has arguably found the initial adaptation period harder than any other new boy in the squad, but there are players in the squad who pre-date his arrival with their own personal tales of early toil and trouble. Junior Firpo, on the other side of the back four, is a prime example.

According to Marsch, what is required to ensure short-term pain leads to long-term gain is patience.

"We have a young team, we've made the decision strategically to go after players that we believe have high potential and fit the way that we want to play," he said.

"And we haven't gone as much with Premier League experience. That means I have to be patient at times. I have to, and by the way, it's not like I have a tonne of Premier League experience either."

Nineteen games, to be precise, but even that is sufficient for the head coach to have grasped just how quickly you have to learn, in one of world football's toughest schools, where time and patience are never afforded in bountiful quantities.

He's optimistic that the process of educating players on the demands of the Premier League is not only underway at Leeds, it's happening at pace.

"You have to be patient and at times understand that they're going to make foolish mistakes and help them learn from those mistakes and help them understand that it's part of the process, and try to accelerate the process and the learning curve as much as possible," he said.

"We are doing that. I believe we are doing that."

Win or learn. Those are the only two options available to Leeds. They haven't won in four and their last two outings have yielded more mistakes than points, but as long as they've learned, that might not matter too much when all the tests have been taken and the final results come in.