Jesse Marsch relies on convincing Leeds United guarantee in avoiding a Marcelo Bielsa hangover - YEP 20/10/22

Leeds United are winless in six but YEP chief football writer Graham Smyth says Jesse Marsch is still enjoying an almost cast-iron guarantee given to him in the wake of Marcelo Bielsa’s departure.

By Graham Smyth

It matters little that Leeds United are yet to finalise their promised permanent tribute to Marcelo Bielsa, such is the man's legacy.

Finding an appropriate way to mark his incredible time at Elland Road is always going to be a challenge, not least because it's so difficult to imagine a single idea to which such a unique, modest character would bestow his blessing.

Almost eight months on from his sacking, the strength of feeling towards him in the Leeds fanbase currently remains tribute enough. Just this week fanzine-podcast-merchadise kings The Square Ball released a Newell's Old Boys inspired shirt, in his honour. The Argentine's face still adorns walls in and around the city. His name still trends online, at least locally, on matchdays and continues to move the needle with audience figures, each time he's linked to a new job.

Leeds moved on though, because they had to, a suggestion that may still be hard for some to swallow but one that has gathered more credibility over time.

And even if it has been difficult at times to see how Jesse Marsch's football has represented the smoothest transition from Bielsaball, other than in an intense press, it has been easy to identify why, if a change was what the ownership wanted, Marsch was the right man to take the players through the latter stages of last season.

His man management style is so different to Bielsa's that it was always going to feel like a breath of fresh air for anyone in need of an arm around their shoulder or a heart-to-heart during the most stressful of seasons. His efforts to create a collegial atmosphere were and still are appreciated by the squad, if you believe those close to them. Even if second hand accounts and a raft of 'the gaffer's been brilliant' interviews are not credible enough, it's surely not beyond anyone's imagination to believe that Marsch's relentless affirmation would make a player want to play for him. Only the most hardened cynic would balk at being feted as a 'fantastic young man' or an important part of a team by a boss who genuinely seems to believe it. Marsch still needed the players to buy in, though. He perhaps needs them to buy in now more than ever.

And where Leeds could offer him an almost cast-iron guarantee that there would be no Bielsa hangover was in the players' ability and willingness to buy in. That's what they did before they even knew this famed, one-of-a-kind head coach who arrived in 2018 with his man-marking system, weight limits and ideas that would change everything and everyone. Liam Cooper and Stuart Dallas did away with booze in preparation for a new, demanding regime.

Marsch, who risked a comfortable summer succession to take over mid-season, could at least content himself that he was inheriting a squad who would give generously of themselves to the cause. Of course there could be no 'widows of Bielsa' among them, not if they wanted to stay up or stay at the club when the summer came, but they bought in to Marsch, convincingly.

The results of Bielsa's methods, both individual and collective, helped sustain the buy-in he received for a long, long time, even through periods of adversity. Right now, under Marsch, Leeds aren't getting results, they aren't winning, but the pressing statistics and the very visible determination to carry out his plans against Arsenal suggest that the American is still getting that vital buy-in.

They're playing his football and so must believe that it will work. Like Bielsa's before him, Marsch's is a style that will likely show, very quickly, any loss of belief. You either commit to the 'all in' philosophy when the opposition have the ball, or you don't, there is no halfway house that would hide a loss of belief. So even if Leeds didn't score against Arsenal, and even if they didn't win for a sixth consecutive outing, supporters can definitely take heart from that performance because it showed a squad united behind their manager and what he's telling them to do. Perform like that, win the ball aggressively like that, create wave after wave of chances like that, and even the collective forces of luck, officiating inconsistency and VAR roulette will not be able to deny Leeds a victory.

That has likely been one of the American's mantras at Thorp Arch this week as he attempts to simultaneously maintain high spirits and ward off doubt. Play like you played in that second half against Arsenal, when you go to Leicester and when you welcome Fulham, and you can end this run. There was even enough good football, amid the chaos, to park fears over this stuff only working against teams good enough and intentioned enough to play.

If you've read this far without a 'but' then that's probably a minor miracle and if you've been waiting impatiently for one, wait no longer, here it is - but they have to win, now.

Elland Road remained squarely behind Marsch on Sunday because it liked what it saw, result, officiating and some opposition antics aside. Granted, buy in, from players or fans, can only be sustained by performances alone for so long, and here's the other but - but Marsch needs it now. Leeds need it now. And like him or not, like his football or not, Marsch has earned it.