Marsch must make an immediate impact to ensure Leeds’ dramatic switch works out - The Athletic 28/2/22

By Phil Hay

There were eulogies paid to Marcelo Bielsa by Leeds United on Sunday and the promise of a permanent tribute to him at Elland Road, but alongside those compliments were comments that showed faith in the corridors of power had gone.

Andrea Radrizzani, the club’s chairman, said starkly that “a change is required now to secure our Premier League status”. Victor Orta, their director of football and the man responsible for courting Bielsa in the first place, warned that the board “cannot hide from results”. In other words, in the minds of the people at the top of the club, relegation was looming and drastic action was required.

Relegation looming, more often than not, is what drives a change of head coach in the Premier League but the decision-making process behind sacking Bielsa — even without considering the intense public emotion surrounding the Argentinian’s exit — was and is incredibly delicate. It was an unequivocal conclusion that in the last 12 games of the season, another manager would do what Bielsa could not. And from gambles like that, there is also nowhere to hide.

Leeds, by lunchtime on Sunday, were already into the next phase of the managerial handover. They were far enough down the road to appointing Jesse Marsch as their next head coach that in the statement announcing Bielsa’s departure, they gave notice of the likelihood of a replacement materialising on Monday. Marsch requires a work permit to coach in the UK, but is expected to qualify having managed in Europe for most of the past three years. His arrival appears to be a matter of agreeing the formalities.

Marsch and Orta got to know each other through a mutual friend during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic while Marsch was managing Red Bull Salzburg in Austria. At that stage, Orta’s analysis of prominent coaching across Europe had marked Marsch out as someone worth following and Leeds were constantly planning their next step for the day when they and Bielsa parted company. Orta’s view of Marsch was that his style of play would blend as closely as reasonably possible to that of Bielsa’s if one was to succeed the other, as should happen in the next 24 hours. The analysis of Marsch at Elland Road goes back two years.

The American leans heavily towards a modern system of football — pressing in high areas, controlling possession, playing in transition — but for all the focus that awaits on his broader philosophy and ideals, the bottom line for Marsch is the need to make an immediate impact. The difference he makes and the speed at which he makes it will dictate whether sacking Bielsa in the face of consternation among Leeds’ fanbase is remembered as a diligent change at a time when change was needed or a panicked call that failed to reverse poor results. Relegation fights provide no real honeymoon period, but an appointment today would allow Marsch a full week of training before Leeds go to Leicester City on Saturday.

There are several things in the in-tray Marsch stands to inherit from Bielsa, but the first — and the most in need of attention — is a defensive record that has been gradually sucking Leeds down towards the Premier League’s relegation places. Statistically, the club are not quite as porous as their numbers suggest. Their expected-goals-against (xGA) tally of 50 is 10 below their tally of actual concessions but still equates to almost two a game and has been worsening since the midway point of the season. Over the past month, Leeds were in a cycle of matches running away from them because of an inability to hold firm at the back. Marsch is expected to rely on zonal marking, rather than the current man-to-man system, to try and rectify that.

Bielsa used part of his final press conference on Saturday to explain where his tactics were going wrong. The high press was not as effective as it should be, he admitted, and because of that, opposition teams were able to supply their attacking line with quality possession in good areas, increasing their own chances of scoring. The plan under Bielsa was always to negate attacks by disrupting them beyond or near halfway and preventing teams from establishing any flow. As a result of a poorer press, Leeds were finding it difficult to recover the ball in positions where they could transition effectively.

When Bielsa insisted that the physical effort made by his players was nonetheless beyond reproach, he was not wrong. Sources at Leeds say that the squad’s running stats remained high to the very end and in that respect, Marsch can benefit from taking on a group of players who do not need encouragement to cover large distances over 90 minutes. One of the traits of his sides on the continent was a consistent trend of outrunning most of the teams they faced.

It is likely that when the dust settles, he will try to use his own version of the high press to squeeze opponents and control possession. His Salzburg team were defensively steady, conceding on average a goal a game across his two seasons, but it is no secret that Salzburg are a dominant force in Austria and that the Premier League is a higher standard of competition. At RB Leipzig, in Germany’s Bundesliga, he survived for less than half a season.

Critical to enhancing Leeds’ stability will be the return of Kalvin Phillips, the long-standing keystone in Bielsa’s line-up but a player he was unable to call on because of injury from December 5 onwards. Marsch used a 4-2-2-2 system at Salzburg and might try to use Phillips in a slightly different way to Bielsa, potentially in a deep role alongside another midfielder, but having him available at all would be a significant shot in the arm.

Despite Bielsa saying last week that he no longer expected Phillips to be fit for the first week of March, the England international is understood to be closing in on a comeback. Leeds also hope that Liam Cooper is in the final stages of recovering from hamstring surgery and on the verge of re-entering the fray.

Along with Patrick Bamford, another player who is trying to shake off injury, an easing of the absentee list would give Marsch three things Bielsa’s side were crying out for latterly: a far stronger midfield presence, more leadership defensively and the No 9 most suited to playing through the middle. Nurturing them back safely but quickly for the run-in will be crucial.

Again, Bamford may be asked to slot into something closer to a front two — no longer the lone forward in a 4-1-4-1 — but his pressing and his finishing ability are qualities Leeds can cling to. In seeing Bielsa depart, it was hard to not wonder if the impending returnees would have helped him pull his side from harm’s way, but in the minds of the board there was no way back from a week in which Leeds conceded 12 goals and lost three times.

Despite the scores, Leeds’ expected goals figures had been picking up recently. They are well short of the level reached in the Premier League last season, a campaign in which they scored 62 times, but Marsch is taking on a side who pose a lingering threat. Leeds had ample opportunities to score in Saturday’s 4-0 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur and made nothing of some glaring chances. The main problem for Bielsa was that defensive weakness demanded a spectacular level of output at the other end of the pitch, something his side had little chance of delivering.

Others from the backroom staff joined Bielsa out of the door, including assistants Pablo Quiroga and Diego Reyes and fitness coach Benoit Delaval. Some of his analysts were expected to move on with them. He spent time with those closest to him on Saturday evening and was at Thorp Arch on Sunday to see some of the wider staff, visibly tearful as he tied up loose ends and pictured life away from a complex that he virtually lived in for almost four years. He is due to hold a last meeting with the club’s players today before preparing for a flight to Argentina, the final leg in one of his biggest adventures.

There is no indication yet of how Marsch intends to construct his own backroom team or how large it will be. His assistant at Leipzig, Achim Beierlorzer, became interim boss after they sacked Marsch in December and is still in that post. His old assistant at Salzburg, Rene Aufhauser, is managing in Austria’s second division at Liefering, another club part of the Red Bull stable.

Leeds’ interest in Marsch has been common knowledge for the past month but he was originally part of a shortlist for the summer ahead — an option if Bielsa departed then. Until very recently, there was no plan for him to assume control now.

The next six games have to go well. From Leicester this Saturday to Watford away on the weekend of April 9, they will meet two of the clubs in the Premier League’s bottom three and none of the division’s current top seven.

Confidence in Bielsa survived for so much of this season in no small part because his players had a knack for picking up points from teams around them in the table. Do that, Leeds deduced, and relegation should remain at arm’s length. As the baton passes, it is Marsch’s way of making sure that, here and now, a dramatic switch works out.