Jesse Marsch fully focussed on positives of fifth game unbeaten - Yorkshire Post 25/4/22

Jesse Marsch admitted Leeds United had not played at their best at Selhurst Park, but he was only interested in dwelling on the positives after seeing his side extend their unbeaten run to five matches.

By Stuart Rayner

They did so with a clean sheet in a 0-0 draw which widened the gap to safety to five points. Everton have six matches to play compared to Leeds's five, but no momentum.

It was not difficult to pick holes in a performance where Leeds were scrappy in possession, but Marsch had no interest in doing so.

"The result is big, every point is important, the performance (was) not our best but defensively (we were) very stable," said the American.

"It was a second clean sheet in a row, five games unbeaten, Kalvin (Phillips) played 90 minutes, we got some young players (Sam Greenwood and Joe Gelhardt) some minutes, we just have to take the positives away.

"It was not so easy with 16 days to keep game-fitness and game-sharpness and that part showed a little bit but the mentality of the group and the ability for the team to fight for every single inch on the pitch I think really helped us earn the point.

"I think it's a really big point. It gets us closer and closer to our ultimate goal.

"I feel like any time you have an away match in this league unless you're the giant it's not so easy to get control of the match so you have to find ways to defend, to be good on the counter, to make it difficult for the opponent and you have to find ways to have a little bit more creativity and ideas of how to connect and create big chances in the final third.

"But I'm very pleased with this point.

"If you would have said to me five games ago that in the next five games we'd pick up 11 points I would have signed on the dotted line.

"We still have a lot of things to work on but I just take it game by game."

Leeds had been inactive since the 3-0 win over Watford, allowing Burnley to make up ground on them in the battle to stay in the Premier League.

With their next three matches against Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal, Marsch is about to face the three highest-quality of his short Elland Road tenure and although they have been far more solid than the wide open team he inherited in February, they have not been able to match quality in possession to their frantic football.

"There were two factors - in the build-up phase our spacing, movement, timings and connections weren't good," explained Marsch. "and then a lot of times when we won balls we gave them right back, especially in the first half.

"We settled down more in the second half but and I thought we were able to piece the game together a little bit better but that being said if you lose balls against this team that's good in transition it means they can be very dangerous.

"It wasn't an easy task but at this place against a team that can be very explosive to hold a clean sheet is very important for us right now."