Brenden Aaronson is perfect pressing machine for Jesse Marsch’s system - The Athletic 12/8/22

By Phil Hay

Before he turned professional, Brenden Aaronson would sometimes ask when he would start to grow. When would he sprout and when would he bulk up, giving him physical parity with the boys he trained with?

To the naked eye, Aaronson was slight and unintimidating and, even fully grown at 5ft 10in (178cm), it could be said he still is — but nothing left him short on stamina. From a young age, he could cover distances of over 12km in 90 minutes, as he did for Leeds United against Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday. He was capable of running and running, yielding data which European clubs were bound to notice.

There was technical appeal when Leeds paid more than £20million ($24.4m) to sign him from RB Salzburg in May, an appreciation of his skill on the ball, but on top of that came the guarantee the club’s money was buying an exceptional athlete. Aaronson’s fitness spoke for itself and across Europe, pound for pound, his pressing was on a par with any player in his position. By sustaining those bursts of acceleration all day, he was tailor-made for the Red Bull philosophy — and primed for the model Leeds aimed to build with Jesse Marsch.

If Salzburg became home for Aaronson after his move from Philadelphia Union in 2020 then Leeds is home away from home; a familiar formation, tactical ideas he learned in Austria and the same coach, Marsch, who took him to the Austrian Bundesliga. He brought a good engine with him and he will need it at Elland Road.

On Saturday, during a 2-1 victory over Wolves, Leeds covered more ground as a team than any other Premier League side over the course of the new season’s first weekend. They ran hard and when the stats arrived at full-time, very few of Marsch’s players had run harder than Aaronson. His competitive debut cast him as a pressing beast, an outing which beat Wolves’ left-back Rayan Ait-Nouri into submission.

Aaronson is only 21 and it might be that over time his exact role at Leeds changes. His strengths would suit the position directly behind Marsch’s No 9 — Patrick Bamford on Saturday — but for now, Marsch is using him as the right-sided attacker in a 4-2-3-1. That system, tweaked in a certain way, can provide penetration on the flanks but as Leeds’ average positions from the win over Wolves make clear (graphic, below), they are effectively playing with a line of three 10s. Nonetheless, Marsch needs discipline in their positioning, particularly off the ball, and Aaronson was strict in following clear orders to harass Ait-Nouri and limit his time on the ball.

There are several principles to Marsch’s pressing, and one of them is that the press should be coordinated, applied as a unit. Making it work relies on aggression but also on individual judgement about when to go and who to target. Ait-Nouri was in Aaronson’s line of fire throughout Saturday’s match and it did not take long to see how the USA international planned to cut the supply down Wolves’ left side. It was necessary to limit their flow because over 90 minutes, Wolves outscored Leeds by 507 completed passes to 291.

Aaronson drifted into a wider variety of areas when Leeds were in possession but defensively, he made the right flank his responsibility. He kept eyes on Ait-Nouri and his speed over short distances meant he could close the ground quickly as Wolves tried to play out, as in the next sequence of play on 17 minutes (below).

He is fully 25 yards from Ait-Nouri when Wolves shape to spread the ball wide to the full-back but what looks like an easy pass ends with a clearance up field as Aaronson gets to Ait-Nouri in a couple of seconds. One moment Ait-Nouri has time, the next he has Aaronson invading his personal space.

This scenario repeated itself throughout the first half. In the following passage of play (below), Wolves try an identical move — goalkeeper Jose Sa rolling out to a centre-back who in turn sends possession on to Ait-Nouri — but the speed of the press from Aaronson forces a mis-control from Ait-Nouri and lets Leeds pin down Bruno Lage’s defence with four bodies in a tight space. The ball ended up back with Sa, forcing Wolves to start again.

Even better for Marsch were the moments where the attention on Ait-Nouri forced turnovers of possession, inviting Leeds to about-turn and counter. Recovering the ball and attacking in transition is a core aspect of Marsch’s tactics. Across the Premier League, Leeds’ application of 64 successful pressures — regaining possession within five seconds of applying the press — was the highest in the division. What Marsch wanted was situations like that shown below, where Aaronson squeezes Ait-Nouri and forces a rushed pass which Rasmus Kristensen intercepts. Aaronson then has space behind him to offer an outlet going forward.

Forcing errors through spirited pressing was Leeds’ route to their equalising goal, scored in the 24th minute. The finish was avoidable from Wolves’ perspective, invited by two missed chances to clear, but Aaronson’s tenacious tackling was responsible for turning a heavy through ball from Jack Harrison into an opportunity for Rodrigo.

Two challenges on Ait-Nouri forced a game of ping pong inside the box and a ricochet off Harrison gave Rodrigo time to make space for himself and shoot under Sa at the near post. In this instance, Leeds’ counter-pressing paid off.

The test for Aaronson will be applying a consistent level of influence over a full Premier League season but it is clear that pressing comes naturally to him. That attribute was in him when he was emerging in the US and has long been seen as one of his strengths. In possession, meanwhile, his movement and passing kept Wolves guessing and gave Leeds both creativity and goalscoring intent.

By dropping deep in the next sequence and arcing his run between two Wolves’ players, he was able to take a pass from Robin Koch, turn in space and bring Kristensen into play down the right. Given how reliant Leeds are on their full-backs for width, it will fall to players like Aaronson to provide them with service, working the gaps and anticipating overlaps.

But Aaronson’s pace and direct running allowed for counter-attacks from more defensive zones, too. A good example of this came in the 27th minute.

As the screenshots below show, Leeds are on the back foot in their box but Aaronson is there to help crowd Wolves out. A clearance by Tyler Adams drops to Rodrigo and Aaronson has reacted at a speed which lets him take an inside pass and burst into space. This is where he seems to be in his element, driving forward over halfway with the opposition backing off.

Leeds can expect to see him do this repeatedly over the course of the season and in the end, their failure to make anything of the attack was a waste of a very good position.

In his career to date, Aaronson has not been a prolific goalscorer but he was good for four or five a season in his time at Salzburg and the winner on Saturday, 16 minutes from time, showed intelligence in spotting how an attack would unfold. The speed of the move was impressive — seven seconds to send the ball, via four passes, from the halfway line to the back of Sa’s net — and it showcased the vertical passing style which Marsch favours.

The first image, below, shows how rapidly Aaronson (top left) wants possession directed to him when space opens up near the centre circle. Adams’ pass goes instead to Klich but Aaronson sees straight away that the flow down the left might present a chance to score at close range. He sprints for the six-yard box as Klich guides Bamford into the left channel and the forward’s cutback is impossible to defend. Ait-Nouri turns it in before Aaronson can get a touch and though there was disappointment afterwards that the finish went down as an own goal, it was a fitting representation of the grief Aaronson gave Ait-Nouri for so much of the afternoon.

Elland Road’s initial glimpse of him suggested that for more than £20m, an all-round game is part of the package. Aaronson can be an asset defensively, he can pose a threat going forward and there was nothing on Saturday to indicate that the Premier League will be a problem for him physically. His tally of 31 individual pressures applied, 12 of them successful, topped the charts on the opening weekend.

“I thought he was active and lively and dangerous all match,” Marsch said, and it was immediately obvious why Aaronson had dominated the traditional bleep test at the start of pre-season, a competition Jamie Shackleton was used to winning. Marsch needs runners and at first glance, Aaronson looks like the pick of them.