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.