Marsch is treading a fine line with officials. His emotion by design may prove a costly game - The Athletic 4/9/22

By Phil Hay

Whatever Jesse Marsch’s heart desires from English football, Christmas cards are not it.

A month into the season and his list of run-ins shows one scrape with Bruno Lage, some shade thrown at Thomas Tuchel, a booking from Graham Salisbury, a red card from Robert Jones and, very nearly, a partridge in a pear tree. This is “human behaviour 101” as Marsch defined it in April, his temperament on show in the heat of the moment and something of a mental ploy, but there is a juncture at which irate head coaches risk becoming enemies of the state.

Marsch has not seen the best of English officials and as he pointed out last week, there is inexperience in the Select Group ranks which has shown itself in Leeds’ games over the past fortnight. But game by game, Marsch is treading a finer line. A yellow card came from Salisbury last weekend, the height of sarcasm as Marsch goaded him and invited him to take his name. A red card followed at Brentford on Saturday, the consequence of a jilted penalty appeal and Marsch’s tap running over.

It is heat of the moment but it is also calculated and Marsch, somewhat riskily, has made it clear that some of what he does on the touchline is emotion by design. If decisions are going against him, he pushes back against them. If, as happened on Saturday, a dubious tackle on Crysencio Summerville passes without a VAR check for a penalty, he is prone to sprinting down the touchline, venting at an assistant and berating the referee for not running to the screen. Jones came across to the near touchline soon enough but only to consult with the fourth official and point Marsch down the tunnel. In the sweepstake about when Marsch would incur the establishment’s wrath, Brentford away paid out.

His defence was to say that when Brentford were awarded a penalty in the first half, the start of the London’s club’s 5-2 win over Leeds, he had taken the decision fairly and squarely, even though he was not convinced that Luis Sinisterra’s tackle on Ivan Toney merited it. It was the 30th minute and a scenario in which Jones had avoided making his mind up completely. There was no penalty given and no free kick awarded against Toney, just a shrug of the shoulders which tossed the incident upstairs.

“When the phrasing is clear and obvious and the decision takes that long…” Marsch said without finishing. “I don’t think it was a penalty and if it is, it’s incredibly soft.” He was under the impression that the threshold for awarding them was supposed to rise this season and when Summerville went down later in the match, no one apart from Marsch seemed interested.

Even so, the penny is dropping that by tackling the standard of officiating with a hammer, Marsch is putting himself in harm’s way. Did his approach not risk influencing the way in which referees dealt with him? “Yeah, I’m witnessing that straight away,” he said. “I need to have more conversations. I don’t know how the avenues work or who to talk to and what to say. I know our club has reached out (to the authorities) but maybe it’s time for me to have discussions. On matchdays I’ve been a bit frustrated, specifically the last three matches.” Failing to review Aaron Hickey’s challenge on Summerville was, Marsch said, “a lack of respect”.

He undoubtedly has the devil in him, hidden though it often is. Players who know him say that beyond the open communication, the cuddly persona and the beaming smile, he likes to lace his teams with a nasty streak. But it is fair to say that within the Premier League’s managerial fraternity, there will be few coaches making referees talk among themselves more than him. The upshot was a heavy defeat in London which ended with Marsch’s assistants, Mark Jackson and Rene Maric, holding the fort as Leeds pulled themselves back into the game before capitulating again.

The capitulations were the biggest problem in London, a defence folding every time the result was in the balance. Ivan Toney terrorised Leeds, winning a penalty and scoring it, drilling a brilliant free kick into the top corner for 2-0 and then dinking in an even more audacious chip for 3-1 in the second half. His hat-trick goal was both sublime and a gift, Diego Llorente missing a challenge, Illan Meslier rushing out to try and mop the floor and Toney holding his poise to flight the ball into an empty net. It went 3-2 when Marc Roca turned a low Luke Ayling cross in but, immediately, Bryan Mbeumo ran in behind Llorente and stabbed home a flick off Robin Koch. Llorente’s afternoon was drowning in mud and Brentford picked him off once more in injury time when Yoane Wissa stormed him, robbed him and finished him with a low shot.

No amount of resistance or panache at the other end of the field was going to compensate for defending like that and Leeds had gone from conceding five goals in five league games to conceding five in one afternoon. Liam Cooper was on the bench on Saturday and having hinted beforehand that in his mind’s eye, Cooper and Robin Koch were his ideal centre-back pairing, Marsch might find himself turning that way before Nottingham Forest tip up at Elland Road next Monday. “Sometimes we put our centre-backs in difficult situations,” he said. Llorente had done an especially good job of that himself. Toney spent the entire afternoon devouring red meat.

Jones did not help either but mind games with officials are difficult to dictate. Like the average casino, they usually end with the house winning as split decisions harden and head coaches lose by landing on red. There was more to the Brentford defeat in any case and, as Marsch lamented losing Dan James on deadline day in what he said was a one in, one out strategy at Elland Road — a comment which will need more explaining — there was plenty to talk about closer to home, starting with a defence who will pay for performances so flimsy as surely as Marsch is asking for his card to be marked.