Jesse Marsch before Man City wants Dirty Leeds to be Pesky Leeds - The Square Ball 28/4/22


GO FOR IT

Written by: Rob Conlon

As night follows day, the manager of Leeds United sits down at Thorp Arch for his pre-match press conference and immediately tells us which players have been injured in training since the last presser. Crysencio Summerville is the latest fast-tracking into Rob Price’s treatment room, announced by Jesse Marsch, previewing Saturday’s visit of Manchester City to Elland Road. Summerville injured his ankle in the final training session before Monday’s ding-dong in Croydon(g), ruled out with Tyler Roberts and Adam Forshaw for the rest of the season.

Patrick Bamford is still injured too, says Marsch, “but I suspect and can probably expect that he will be on the pitch next week.” That sounds like genuinely good news, but please remember how bad you felt when he came back too early last time, Jesse!

The rest of the presser focused on how Leeds can build on consecutive clean sheets while finding a balance between that newfound defensive solidity and remembering how to pass the ball to one another. Marsch said after Palace that Leeds are going to “go for it” against City, who he described as “the biggest Goliath in world football”. On Thursday he dubbed the fixture “the best team in the world against the best club in the world — you can decide which is which.” So what will ‘going for it’ actually look like? The answer is “pragmatic but aggressive”:

“It’s about first the mentality of understanding that every moment, every second of the game, is important, because if we’re not ready or not totally connected in one moment, they’re good enough to exploit that and be very dangerous. Now, our ability to be dangerous in moments will obviously affect how aggressive they can be. I was at the Man City v Liverpool game and Man City started out great with lots of really good moments and they were aggressive in pushing forward. Then Liverpool was dangerous and was able to get a goal, and Man City had to be a little bit more cautious. Obviously we’re not Liverpool, right? But if we can find moments like Real Madrid, then to still be dangerous and, you know, make a goal or at least put a little bit of fear in our ability to counter and to be effective with the ball, then it will affect how aggressive they can be. So that’s really important.

“And then the tactical plan, right, that the players are very clear. We had a long video session today. We will have another one tomorrow. And that they are very clear with exactly what the tactical plan is and how to execute it on the day under a pressure situation. And I don’t mean pressure of the results, I mean that the quality of the opponent and the intelligence of the opponent is so good that it forces them to have to be ready to run, but also ready to think. Yeah, it’s a challenge at the highest level and we’ll make sure that we will do everything we can to be up for it.”

“Pesky” was Marsch’s word of the day when talking about what he wants from a team battling relegation against a team challenging for the title:

“I’m used to being on the other end of the spectrum, fighting for the title. And I know that a lot of times playing against the relegation foes, it can be a pesky match. And that’s our job on the day is to make the match pesky for Man City.”

And what does he mean by pesky?

“Annoying, pesky. I think dangerous as well. Again, the pragmatism of understanding that we have to be aggressive, but we have to understand where to be aggressive, why to be aggressive and how to be aggressive. And then how to make sure that we are addressing exactly the things that make them the strongest, and trying to eliminate and or at least contain those things. So yeah. And then still play to our strengths. That’s key.”

He ended by elaborating on wanting to see his team echo his own identity:

“Hard work, aggression. Working defensively. Fighting for everything. And trying to entertain. I think that’s what I resonate with. And so, you know, we haven’t been as effective in the attacking part of the pitch as I would have hoped for moving forward. But I also knew coming in that shoring up the defensive part of the pitch was the most important thing. But we need to get better at commanding the game with the ball and certainly then finding ways to score more goals and be aggressive in transition moments.”

That’s not going to be easy against City, though:

“[It’s] maybe the ultimate test. And I’m very honest when I say that I think they’re the best team in the world. They’re there. The talent they have, I think, speaks for itself. Their manager does an incredible job of creating a tactical model that is very complex and one that the players understand very, very well and are able to execute very well in it. And it’s one that’s incredibly difficult to defend against. And that’s what you see more often than anything, is that Man City has an ability to control the match over time by their quality and their movement and their ideas and their ability to unbalance you and and often unbalance you in one area and then attack you in another.

“So we will have to be very clear with exactly what our tactics are for the day, what our strategies are for the day. And we have to find moments to not just be passive throughout the match, because then what happens is they can put so much pressure on teams with the ball and then with their counter-pressing that they just suffocate teams. We have to be more confident and better with the ball and then we have to understand the moments when strategically we can still be aggressive. And so that’s not easy and a massive challenge, but hopefully on the day we can use our crowd and find ways to find advantages and see if we can fight for a result.”

On what makes City so good, the coach who said “we know where the goal is and it’s not in the corner, it’s in the middle of the field” a couple of weeks ago, said:

“I think if you analyse them, they overload wide areas and they’re so good at crossing situations that even though they don’t have much height up the field, they score almost every goal from wide areas. So we have to manage that and we have to understand what that means and then what options they create and movements they create and how to try to limit those.

“And then when we win balls, how to try to be effective, to catch them on the counter and then in possession, to still be confident and to try to unbalance it. So, yeah, I mean, for me, that’s why I say they’re the best team in the world. It’s the quality they have, but also the way the management teaches them to play the game. It’s at such a high level. Such a high level.”

Someone asked, does that mean they have an aura?

“They’ve got an aura, they’ve got quality, they’ve got money…”

Christ, what more could they have? Oh wait, there is more:

“They’ve got success, they’ve got expertise, they’ve got everything.”

But are they really happy?

Thankfully Marsch doesn’t think the 7-0 defeat at the Etihad earlier this season has left any psychological scars on the players, because “we’re all very clear this is a team that can pile on the goals.” And he’s not paying too much attention to Fizzy Leipzig’s 6-3 loss to City, while he was still in charge of that franchise in November, because “it was really hard to evaluate what was good and what was bad” when his team made “such big mistakes in that game. I mean, really, really bad mistakes.”

For an example of what Jesse means, this own goal is both very good and very bad, depending on which way you look at it:

The most awkward moment came when a journalist asked him about Leeds’ 2-1 win at City last season. Marsch initially didn’t want to read too much into it as he thought Leeds played with a man advantage. When it was pointed out to Jesse that it was actually Leeds that had a player sent off, he couldn’t help but cackle, which was good. Then he said:

“I haven’t [watched back last year’s win]. I went back and looked at the first game we played [against City] this year. Maybe I will [watch last season’s back]. It’s a good idea.”

It is a good idea! Speaking of ideas, how did Raphinha end up taking long throws against Crystal Palace?

“We had a contest in training because I asked the team if anyone had a long throw. And I’ve done this before and they all said no. And I said, ‘Someone in here does.’ And I said, ‘And my money is on Raphinha.’ And he did. It was dangerous and we’ll probably use it more in the future. And so we don’t have a throw-in coach like Liverpool or some other places, but we will try to see if we can be dangerous in those moments.”

As for the rest:

Stuart Dallas is likely to play left-back again, but Junior Firpo is getting closer to being able to start, and will help Leeds “have ease with the ball from the left-back position”. Jesse admits that’s not Dallas’ best position, and wants to use him in central midfield, even if Northern Ireland boss Ian Baraclough recently visited Leeds and explained why he uses Dallas as a wing-back.

Marsch keeps insisting he’s not the guy to speak to about goalkeeping technicalities, but he thinks the way Illan Meslier was unable to train leading up to the Watford game but was still “flawless” at Vicarage Road was “a big moment in Illan’s career”. That was in answer to a question about whether Meslier will stay in the summer. “In the end the answer is yes, let’s keep him.” I agree!

“I don’t have the energy to think about the table and how other teams are doing and what it’s going to look like at the end of the year.” Me neither!

Marsch wisely stopped himself while talking about how “the players are not used to a manager and a leader like [me]” before Talksport could publish a story about it, adding, “and that’s not just me comparing me to Marcelo. It’s just in general, I don’t think there’s a lot of coaches that have that kind of leadership style in our sport in Europe, and in America for that matter.”

But Bielsa would no doubt agree with Marsch’s assessment that “this business is so much about when it’s difficult — what are you? Everybody’s good when it’s easy. Everybody is good at what they do and they’re happy. And it’s when it’s difficult. How much can you stick to your principles? You stick to the things you believe in. Do you walk the talk? Right. So that’s what I know. I want to be my best when it is the most difficult and I want to stay true to exactly what I believe in.”

Jesse is in agreement with Dan James, without a goal in eleven games, that centre-forward is “not his desired position or his best position”. Marsch is trying to work out how to use James in wide positions, potentially opening a space for Joffy, Rodrigo, or Sam Greenwood to play up front.

On his, er, debate with Mateusz Klich at Palace, Jesse said they “spoke after the match about the things that we thought can be better and then discussed how to handle the tough moments as well. But I really like Klichy. I think he’s a really good player and I love his personality.” The decision to replace Klich with Robin Koch was because Palace were unbalancing Leeds and Koch would help more defensively.

Even though Dallas, James and Robin Koch are all playing out of their most natural positions, Marsch likes working with versatile players and wants more of the same from any potential new signings to give him more flexibility with formations. And here came the key caveat that comes with all judgement of how Marsch is doing in the job:

“We haven’t been able to build that in enough because we’re still getting through principles and ideas of how to play the way we want to play in a relegation fight, where we have to fight for every point. So it stops the project in certain ways because we have to focus so heavily on results, which I never like to do.”

You might say that now, Jesse, but beat Manchester City and you can focus heavily on that result for as long as you want.

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