Leeds United’s best sinks Chelsea in style but Jesse Marsch predicts even better to come - Yorkshire Post 22/8/22

Jesse Marsch says the fear he saw in Leeds United last season has gone, with a number of his players playing the best football of their careers.

By Stuart Rayner

Unsurprisingly, it added up to what the American felt was their best win under him, 3-0 at home to Chelsea yesterday.

Marsch took over for the final 12 matches of last season, as Leeds scraped through a Premier League relegation battle on the last day. That was far from certain when Chelsea won 3-0 in West Yorkshire in May.

But after a summer of shrewd signings – though another left-back and centre-forward would still not go amiss – the coach sees far more belief in his players now.

“I could sense before the game there was no fear,” he said.

“Last season before every game I was here there was fear – naturally when you’re in a relegation fight.

“But no I think they feel a lot of positive energy and they feel a lot of momentum and they have a lot of belief in each other and what they’re doing.

“It means we can go out and perform better.”

It helps that Marsch believes many of his players are at the top of their game.

Captain-for-the-day Rodrigo scored his fourth goal of the season to double Leeds’s first-half advantage.

Brenden Aaronson, who has made an excellent start since joining from Salzburg in the summer opened the scoring after closing down Edouard Mendy as the Chelsea goalkeeper dithered over Thiago Silva’s backpass.

Jack Harrison scored the third when Rodrigo touched on a Dan James cross.

“(Rodrigo)’s been massive, all in, getting better every day, every week,” Marsch said of the Spanish international. “He’s committed at the highest level, he was the captain, rightfully so.

“I’ve enjoyed working with him since I’ve been here.

“He’s been very positive and tried to implement the things I’ve asked of him. I know sometimes he doesn’t always want to do the things – he doesn’t want to run the whole game and he doesn’t want to have to commit himself but I think they’re all finding if they do it together there’s an infectiousness to playing this way.

“I think he’s potentially in the form of his life and I think we have a bunch of guys right now – Jack Harrison, Brenden Aaronson, you can go down the list, of guys playing at a really high level.

“When individuals are playing well and the group is clear with their roles and tactics, when you’re flexible in the way you want to do things, then you can start to feel like we can have real potential.

“Tyler (Adams) is another guy playing the best football of his life for me and I know the potential he has because I’ve known him for so long.

“I could see when he came and we had some tough conversations we needed to almost pick up from where we left off a couple of years ago and he’s certainly doing that in a big way.

“With all these guys they’re playing really well and there’s so much more potential.”

The victory equalled Leeds’s biggest under Marsch – they won at Watford by the same scoreline in April – but given the calibre of the opposition, he felt it was their best.

“It was a really good performance, the best since I’ve been here,” said the American, who succeeded Marcelo Bielsa in March.

“What’s really nice to see is not just that we get the result but I felt like we were the better team.

“We created a bit of a complex matchplan that included if they do different things because they’re very variable but we can be more flexible and manipulate games a little bit more.

“Individually you start to see a bunch of players that understand their roles and now have a lot of confidence and belief in what we’re doing.”

Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel took a less gracious view of proceedings.

“We lost track and there was no need,” he complained. “We were not forced to lose track – everything was going well and I still believe we can win with this team here in Leeds.

“I think it’s more our fault than anybody’s else’s credit.

“I hear from you (journalists) that this is for you the story but we were not all over the place, we did not lose our discipline against the ball but with the ball we were not disciplined enough and sharp enough after 20 minutes.

“But it’s not like we could not deal with anything. It’s a set piece and an own goal (as he constantly referred to Mendy’s error).”

Leeds host Barnsley in the League Cup on Wednesday.