'We'll get that right' - Jesse Marsch on avoiding 2021/22 problem and Marcelo Bielsa lightning rod - YEP 16/6/22
Jesse Marsch has vowed to protect Leeds United from the kind of injury crisis that almost derailed their Premier League journey last season.
By Graham Smyth
The American made no secret of his concern when he arrived
at Elland Road to inherit a squad that was struggling with problems of varying
severity, from niggles that were being managed to muscle tears requiring
surgery.
Kalvin Phillips, Patrick Bamford and Liam Cooper were among
the club’s long-term absentees and more minor issues had piled up to leave the
squad threadbare and necessitate the promotion of several Under-23s in order to
name a full bench on numerous matchdays.
Marsch’s first faux pas of any kind as Leeds manager, one
for which he has since held up his hands, was a comment made in a talkSPORT
interview that suggested the players were ‘overtrained’ under his predecessor
Marcelo Bielsa.
He recently moved to address that in an interview with
SiriusXM FC, once again insisting it was not intended as a slight on the
Argentine.
“Any mention of Marcelo Bielsa by me or anyone at the club
in any kind of negative light is a lightning rod for the fanbase here,” he
said.
“I made a comment at one point that the players were
overtrained and it wasn’t an attack on Marcelo. I will say this, it was partly
due to the fixtures, partly to do with a lot of the things that were happening
- when I arrived the head of performance showed me MRIs of all the current
injuries of almost every single player on the roster.
“I asked him how we were going to get a team ready for the
weekend and he thought with a series of shots and pills, we could get a team on
the pitch, which right away had me very concerned.”
Marsch felt it vital to put a firebreak between Leeds and
not only the never-ending physical injuries that were plaguing the squad, but
the stress and anxiety of a relegation pressure-cooker. He believes they
managed it, en route to final day survival.
“We had to find a way to get out of the cycle of injury
tolerance and the ability to now make sure we could get them closer and closer
to being healthy,” he said.
“We had injuries along the way but we had no sustainable
muscle injuries from after a week I took over. We had some contact injuries and
different random things but we managed the group to get closer and closer to
full health which then allowed them to compete for results. It was also mental,
the stress of being in the relegation zone, the entire situation, it really
took a toll on the group.”
Next season, though, Marsch wants to prevent fires rather
than fight them after they start. Key to that will be the recruitment job
spearheaded by director of football Victor Orta this summer.
Leeds need to add depth to the squad and hope they don’t
have to rely so heavily on Under-23 players.
Marsch also wants to tailor the workload to maintain healthy
numbers of available players for as much of the season as possible.
“We’ll have to manage that really well next year, build the
roster in the right way, manage physically and try as much as we can to put our
best XI on the pitch as often as we can,” he said.
“When you play in such a competitive league and you’re not
able to play with your best players, surviving matches is very difficult. We’ll
get that right.”