Pump it up: Marsch, Harrison & Hodgson on Leeds vs Watford - The Square Ball 9/4/22

EASY, ALL THIS

Written by: Moxcowhite • Daniel Chapman

The game was terrible, but the result was a chef’s kiss, the one good thing to happen in the Premier League since Wednesday night.

Saturday lunchtime at Goodison Park was the sort of contest the Premier League excels in, a competition of incompetence featuring the worst people in the world. Frank Lampard, Ronaldo, Jake Humphrey, Martin Keown, and we were supposed to pick sides? A pox on them all. Of course Scum didn’t help our cause, there, they didn’t even help their own, losing 1-0 to some lousy deflected shot. Remember, this is the side that sacrificed Ole Solskjaer — the funniest manager in the Premier League until Lampard got a new job — in a 4-1 defeat at Watford back in November. They’ve been doing us no favours since opening day.

The important stuff was at Vicarage Road, and while things like passing and attacking seemed difficult for Leeds United, winning came quite comfortably in the end, 3-0. Flattered by the scoreline? We’ll take the compliment! Raphinha scored the first with the best play of the first half, shooting inside the near post, then making such a mess of his knee slide celebration that Barcelona definitely won’t want him anymore. It felt like ages until the second goal, and it took some defensive stupidity from Watford to give Rodrigo the chance to take the ball around the wannabe Logan Paul in nets and score. For the third, Jackie Harrison showed that even if the Instagram evidence suggests his dog is ignoring its obedience lessons, Jackie is gaining confidence from wrangling his big Benelux Malinois, firing an airborne shot across the penalty area into the bottom corner.

This is now three in three from Harrison, three in four from Rodrigo, and Junior Firpo was giving credit where it’s due — to the lilac shirts, that at one point Robin Koch was wearing torn from collar to navel like a Mills & Boon cover star:

Happy Jackie H said it was hard for both teams to play any silky stuff, knowing so much was at stake in the match, but that the game almost went to plan. Scoring first, then harassing Watford into giving up the second goal, was just what Leeds were looking for:

These lads 🤍 Not my best photo but the three points make up for it 🤣 pic.twitter.com/S197TrDZYT

— Kalvin Phillips (@Kalvinphillips) April 9, 2022

“Jesse’s made a big point on scoring the first goal and how crucial it is for any team. The stats show that, so we were really pushing in that first half to get the first goal. We knew they needed points as well, so we knew that they were going to come after us too. So we were just wary of that, but making sure that we did everything we could to score first.”

“You know, when everything is on the line in a game like that, it’s always hard to remain composed and reduce the amount of errors … I think we struggled a little bit at times in the second half and they had some chances, which we need to be more careful of in the future, but fortunately for us they didn’t go in and then we capitalised on that. Scoring the second goal, with Rodrigo it’s great pressure, it’s been what we’ve been working on since Jesse arrived. And you know, he did exactly that and deserved the goal.”

Raphinha enjoyed the game so much that when he was taken off for the last few minutes he was straight to the bench to get some headphones on and listen to the Premier League worldwide feed, giving a big wave to the cameras when the commentators asked if he could hear them. Again, this behaviour is much too weird for PSG so he’ll have to stay in Leeds.

Watford manager Roy Hodgson sounded a little, dare I say it, relegated, as he tried to make out things are not so bad for them:

“It’s frustrating, we wanted it so badly, but the second goal was a real killer blow. It appeared we were doing fairly well. The last thing you want really is to be in a situation we find ourselves in … What we put it down to is them scoring with their only strike in the first half and they kill the game with an unfortunate mix up in our defence, after we had a very good chance.”

Yeah, we’re not sorry about that Roy!

“I’ve never used the word confident, I don’t want to set myself up for headlines or statements I can’t identify with. We have no reason to be confident, we do have reason to belief, to have faith. Results are still a distinct possibility for us … The mood amongst the fans I guess is pretty bad. I can’t speak for them, but the mood amongst the players isn’t as bad as all that.”

And that, dear Hornets, is the bright side.

As for Jesse Marsch, he expanded on Harrison’s comments about taking the lead, and doubled down on them at both ends:

“You know, we haven’t turned one goal leads into two enough. So then we’re stuck in tight matches at the end. So the only thing I was trying to get our group to concentrate on at the end was to get the clean sheet, because we haven’t done that in a while. And so I think that will also give our defending group confidence.”

In his press conference, he explained a few things about his team selection: Adam Forshaw dropped out with “a little bit of a calf problem”, but that didn’t stop Marsch from chewing his ear off for at least ten minutes on the pitch before the game, like when you couldn’t do PE and had to talk to a teacher:

“Yeah, that conversation was just about our team, how we’re doing, where we’re going and what our goals are, how to get there. Adam’s a very intelligent person and he’s a student of the game, so he’s fun to have some of those football conversations with. He was injured on the day, but he still knows that he’s very important for us, and we’re all getting to know each other more and more.”

They’re trying not to rush Kalvin Phillips back and make the same mistake as with Pat Bamford (his words!) so Koch played. Joffy Gelhardt hasn’t trained, and Illan Meslier was close to missing out too, because even though every Wolves fan knows Raul Jimenez didn’t touch him, our Spiderboy is still in pain:

“On Thursday I would have thought Kristoffer Klaesson would have been the keeper today. Illan was fantastic. He’s three weeks later still struggling with that [obvious red card assault]. I’ve even read some people, some things saying about that wasn’t a second yellow. I mean, we’re three weeks later and he’s still struggling from that. So it was a little bit of a miraculous recovery given how he felt two days ago. I had a meeting with him and Kristoffer [Klaesson] today, and I just said, I know that goalkeepers like to have rhythm, and I know that it’s a sensitive situation when you have two goalkeepers, and what the decisions are and how to make the right decision and support everybody, including Marcos [Abad], our goalkeeper coach, in the process. But we needed a big performance from whoever we [chose] with the decision today, and certainly Illan in the moment, where he didn’t train and he just had to prepare himself over twenty-four hours, delivered one of his best performances of the season and was incredibly stable.”

Best performance of the season = stats say he made one save, but okay, a clean sheet is a clean sheet! The less he does the better, the big brave bruised boy.

He talked about Sam Greenwood coming on and playing really well in the second half — Jesse likes him a lot:

“Sam’s been really good since we’ve been here. And I said to him two days ago, that if I look at the entire player pool, he’s the one that is adapting the best and understanding what we want the game to be like. And so I think he showed that today, and he also has quality, right? He’s got the ability to make some final plays. He’s very technical. We’ve got to find ways to include him more, I’ve got to find ways to include Joffy more. I’ve got to find ways to include Summerville.”

The other player impressing Marsch was Liam Cooper, and he won what I guess is sort of a prize, of giving a speech:

“I had him speak to the team afterwards, I haven’t had a better captain in the entire time I’ve been a coach. He was great, he almost came to tears, he loves playing with the guys so much. I really like this group, they give everything they have. It fits with who I am and with what we’re trying to establish together.”

Were those tears of joy, or does Liam like all of us just really hate public speaking? We may never know. Marsch was asked about hearing his name sung by the Leeds fans for the first time and, well, this is quite a long answer:

“I don’t think it was the first time, but to be honest with you, I appreciate it, right? I appreciate our fans so much. I love being here at Leeds. I love the area, the city, the people. I love my family and we’re really enjoying our time here. But moments like that, so much of my emphasis is about the team and about us as a group, and what we’re about, and how we’re going to achieve things together. And any time that it draws attention to me, I don’t necessarily like it. But I do want to show appreciation to the fans for for reaching out to me. But what’s most important is that they, which they do amazing, but that they understand that we’re a real group, a team, a club that wants to represent the city and play football that they can be proud of. And do that as a group. That’s what matters the most to me.”

So… okay, but did you like the song, though, Jesse?

As for the game itself, Jesse wasn’t trying to dress it up as good, but he did recognise the quality in Harrison’s goal and says he would like more like that:

“This is a game that we knew from the beginning wasn’t necessarily going to be about quality, right? I do want us to play better. I want us to be more confident on the ball. I want to see our tactics with the ball to be put in place more, and some of the combinations and ideas of what we what we want to achieve in possession. I want to continue to to get better in those areas.

“But coming out of Southampton, Southampton played every ball long and then we had to pick up second balls, which we didn’t do a very good job of. Today we were much better with that, and that helped us control the opponent more, and it helped us find some advantages. The goal with Jack, we need more moments where we press, where we win balls, and then we find if we can calmly and cleanly find actions forward that lead to big chances. So that’s why the third goal for me was good.”

While recognising we’re not out of relegation trouble yet, he threw in a random whinge about penalties for some reason (there was maybe half a shout for one on Daniel James, but isn’t there always? Maybe that’s his point):

“Everyone’s getting results around us. I think there’s been some weak penalties in some of these games, and we can’t seem to buy a penalty. That’s another topic people in Leeds tell me, we have to fight for everything, and I’ve said it already, that I’m okay with that. But yeah, I think especially with the sixteen day break now, it would have been really difficult to sit and watch the table, knowing that we didn’t pick up the points that we wanted in this game and things are going to get tight by the time we play against Palace … We just have to stay focused on us. That’s the most important thing. I’m really excited that we were able to, in a tough moment and in a really important game, emerge.”

Something about the word ’emerge’ always makes me feel a bit upset, like the word ‘moist’. At least he didn’t say we emerged moist.

Also it seems like we’re always doing these post-win squad photos now, which I was laughing at when Newcastle started doing them, but now I think is the best idea ever:

We won’t be seeing any Leeds celebrations for a while now, because thanks to Chelsea and Sky messing our fixtures around, before we next play we have to sit through: Norwich vs Burnley, Watford vs Brentford, Everton vs Crystal Palace, West Ham vs Burnley, Norwich vs Scum, Everton vs Leicester, Burnley vs Southampton, Norwich vs Newcastle, Liverpool vs Everton, Manchester City vs Watford and Burnley vs Wolves. Then, only then, will we be allowed to play Crystal Palace. At that point all the teams around us will have played 33 games, and we’ll still be on 32, and I guess we’ll find out a lot of things after that.