Leeds United signings show Elland Road board are backing Jesse Marsch’s philosophy - Yorkshire Post 28/6/22
The longer Jesse Marsch’s 12-game stint as Leeds United coach went on last season, the more the Whites started to look like a Marcelo Bielsa team – at least in terms of shape.
By Stuart Rayner
But given what the American inherited, 2021-22 was just
about doing the necessary to stay in the Premier League. Having narrowly
achieved that, the season to come will be more about doing it his way. And
whilst many Leeds fans might prefer to replicate Bielsaball, at least Marsch
looks like being given the tools he needs.
Kalvin Phillips’s imminent departure to Manchester City,
followed by Raphinha’s sale – which seems a lot more inevitable than his
destination – will take away Bielsa’s two star performers.
A broken leg will deprive them of stalwart Stuart Dallas,
and Luke Ayling may not be back from surgery when the new campaign kicks off on
August 6. Patrick Bamford seems certain to face greater competition, even
beyond improving 20-year-olds Joe Gelhardt and Sam Greenwood.
The team is evolving rapidly, perhaps faster than planned.
Strangely, Marsch’s first game, at Leicester City in March,
might provide more clues as to where it is heading than his most recent ones.
That day the team was sent out in a most un-Bielsa-like way.
Where the Argentinian liked to give his players space and create one-on-one
battles, Marsch prefers to gang up on opponents. Leeds were 4-2-2-2, their
wingers tucked in as inside-forwards, their centre-forward no longer in
splendid isolation.
The trouble was, it did not really suit their best player,
Raphinha. Like most Bielsa wingers, he enjoyed the ball near the touchline and
exposing full-backs. So 4-2-2-2 became 4-2-3-1 and eventually more like
Bielsa’s 4-1-4-1, just played differently.
But remove Raphinha – and his dipped performances in the
second half of a draining season hinted that asking him to stay reluctantly in
a World Cup year might be counter-productive if someone meets Leeds’s asking
price – and there is no need for those allowances. Phillips is heading to
Manchester City, where he can more easily reprise the deep-lying playmaker job
he became so brilliant at with his boyhood club.
Raphinha’s fellow winger Jack Harrison showed more
adaptability tucking in but is said to be interesting Newcastle United.
The players coming into Elland Road and those linked suggest
a determination from director of football Victor Orta to sign Marsch players,
not just people he can work with.
New right-back Rasmus Kristensen, adept at the attacking
needed to make an otherwise narrow formation work, was under Marsch at
Salzburg; Brenden Aaronson was identified for the previous coach but gets a
tick for being American, and another for his time at Salzburg. American Tyler
Adams, mooted as a Phillips replacement, played for Marsch at Red Bull’s New
York and Leipzig franchises, although still being at the latter could be
problematic given the ongoing legal dispute over Jean-Kevin Augustin’s 2020
non-signing.
Marc Roca’s arrival might be a welcome sign Orta is not just
working through Marsch’s old squads, but he has been holding the midfield under
another coach from the Red Bull factory, Bayern Munich’s Julian Nagelsmann.
“I like having a team that’s very flexible,” insisted Marsch
last season. “I would like to have more flexibility with formations and players
in position.”
Even so, we can probably expect to see the trend of more
bodies in central midfield – making it harder for them to be counter-attacked,
easier to press and attack in gangs – continuing.
Portugal’s Otavio might be a winger like Raphinha, but the
reported target can also play centrally. Aaronson played in the hole for his
club last season, but (a bit) wider for his country.
The more expansive Bielsa shape might be better to watch,
and Leeds would rather have a committed Phillips and Raphinha than not, but this
is the real world.
The signs are Marsch will be given the personnel to play as
he wants, the rest is up to him.
