JESSE MARSCH AND THE LONGEST ENDGAME - Right in the Gary Kellys 25/10/22
When your most loyal travelling support turn on the players, and rather significantly the manager Jesse Marsch, as Leeds fans did at Leicester, there is rarely a way back.
The utter disorganisation and chaos at Leicester wasn’t
unique sadly, the fact it seems to have bedded in now and become the norm is
the biggest kicker of all. An inability to find another white shirt, hit and
hope passing up field, aimless solo runs straight from the playground, with a
hoof into the stands at the end, they’re not what you expect at this level.
The collapses in concentration at the back, kamikaze
fullback positioning way beyond the half way line as the opposition attack
they’re new features it would seem too since the season began. The 3-0 win
against Chelsea seem a long time ago.
So what about the Fulham game? It started off brightly
enough, Leeds pressed well and managed a decent Rodrigo goal after a deflected
Harrison shot, but did we build on that? Oh no. We fell asleep at a corner and
Mitrovic (who else) nodded an equaliser.
With much huffing and puffing but no end product after half
time we ended up staring down a 3-1 reverse. Each goal entirely preventable,
and marked by amateurish defending.
Unless you’ve been on a remote Pacific island with no
internet for the past month, Leeds stats really don’t need revisiting. No win
in eight, six defeats and yes this was our kind run of fixtures with highlights
such as; Southampton (2 goal lead thrown away) Everton (rescued a point) a
smashing at Brentford, thumped by the worst Leicester team in the last 10
years.
But Jesse Marsch can’t fully be blamed for the mess that
currently is Leeds United.
It’s well documented just how abysmally Leeds handled the
transfer window. Leeds needed to get a striker, and a left back, if nothing
else and they failed to recruit either. On the face of it for absolutely no
reason, they had plenty of money from selling the family silver to Man City and
Barcelona, but opted to stick with Firpo at left back, Bamford and Rodrigo up
front, players all with a less than reliable injury record. And guess what? For
the most part they’ve been injured, out of sorts, or recovering.
It’s all basic stuff, and really feels like the kind of
arrogance we had from the Leeds board last January when they decided not to
back Bielsa – resulting in a catastrophic collapse due to lack of striking
options.
And so it was rinse and repeat in June and July. No striker.
And unsuprisngly, converting chances is now our achilles heel. The `slow motion
car crash’ equation begins once more and there’s not much that can be done
until January. You know just after the World Cup.
But are there things our coach might do differently? Does he
have options? Well yes, at least apparently
A willingness to tinker with our best line up is totally in
his gift; why water down the side that were so unlucky not to beat Arsenal?
With the exception of the injured Struijk, the side that faced Leicester was
minus Cooper, Harrison, Rodrigo in the starting line-up. And while Leeds as a
club is reputed for investing in young players, Summerville’s full involvement
in that game came out of the blue and seemed a challenging experience for him.
Again the changes were rung for Fulham and it feels like the
manager doesn’t now know his best XI. The clamour for Willy Gnonto grows with
each passing match (probably the same as the clamour for Gelhardt last season)
but the case here is even more compelling; Gnonto is a full Italian
international and has played European Cup Football for FC Zurich. He’s not a
Wigan Academy product, more to the point the club hired him ahead of schedule
as we floundered at the end of the transfer window – paying £5m for him –
surely he should be getting the nod very soon? And if not, why not?
The same case could even be made for Sonny Perkins and Mateo
Joseph, frankly with Leeds being so wasteful in the past few weeks, what have
they got to lose at this point?
What’s for sure is the abject anger and frustration round
Elland Road, cornered by fans and to his credit, speaking to them Angus
Kinnear, shared his own disappointment but looked less than convinced himself
with the current state of things. The aforementioned crowd didn’t only call for
Marsch’s head come full time against Fulham, but that of the board who’ve
presided over our transfer policy and choices of manager.
Leeds, with the exception of Bielsa, have not made
resoundingly good managerial appointments. One thing really does stand out with
ANY Leeds appointment of the last 20 years, you need to hire top level
experience, for any kind of immediate success.
Remember our two most successful hires in the last ten years
have been Monk and Bielsa (the latter significantly more successful!) who held
top flight European or Premier experience. Whilst Marsch’s `wingless’ wonders
were a mystery for a couple of games, it hasn’t taken long for the most basic
of counter attacks to cut us wide open and the ethos of score one more than the
opposition is no way to run a football club.
Our total disorganisation and poor standard of basics is not
a glowing indictment of our current coaching. It felt very much that Gelhardt
and Summerville’s goal was more about what they’d learnt in the U23s than
anything in the game plan to that point. Namely “I’ll find you in the box Cry –
we’ll run at them together” really nothing more complex, it certainly didn’t
fit any of the previous attacking `patterns’
There is no shame of course in any of Marsch’s achievements,
far from it. He has uncovered some impressive talents and is highly thought of
in European football and the MLS – but the premier league is the best league in
the world and many more experienced coaches have floundered in it. Whilst many
Leeds fans expected decisive action (ala Gerrard at Villa this week) at time of
writing this just hasn’t happened, and it looks like we are as a club going to
allow another bite of the cherry for Marsch at Anfield.
A wounded Liverpool with a wily Jurgen Klopp at the helm is
probably the last place Leeds wanted to be going on Saturday, we can be
thankful though its not a visit to Man City I suppose. There is however a
creeping inevitability to what is going to happen and it seems cruel almost to
drag out this very longest of endgames. What if unbelievably Leeds scrape a
1-1, a 0-0 or a 1-0? Surely the time is here already for Leeds to draw a line
in the sand, and get ready to survive – losing even more points and worsening
our goal difference isn’t a serious consideration – by a serious premier league
board? Our next 3?
Liverpool (A)
Bournemouth (H)
Spurs (A)
Perhaps the feeling at board level is that not even Dr
Strange could conjure up more than one point there, so what’s the point? The
counter argument is that you start planning and rebuilding right now without delay
as the current course is simply not viable. Over to you the Elland Road board…
