Jesse Marsch is running out of luck – and time – at Leeds United - The Athletic 14/1/23

By Phil Hay

Villa Park was where Andrea Radrizzani looked down from the directors’ box and decided that it was not good. “Something is broken,” he told himself and others around him and his perception of the only fix was the most incendiary decision going, the dismissal of Marcelo Bielsa.

That night, last February, was a fraught but barnstorming one, the scoreline swinging from 1-0 to Leeds to 3-1 to Villa and pitching up at 3-3 by full-time. There were mixed reviews for Leeds, not least because of their defence splintering horribly before half-time, but it was entertaining and from 3-1 down, the result went down as a decent point. Radrizzani saw positivity in the media coverage, the glass half full. His own reaction was contrary: worried, faith diminishing, fearing the worst.

Yesterday was a different season, a different head coach but the same venue and the same surge of uncomfortable adrenalin through the veins. Jesse Marsch projects the message that better things are coming but the visuals look like right hands to the jaw, like the opposite of chapters leading to a happy ending. Leeds waited until the half-hour before capitulating temporarily to Villa on their last visit. Last night, they were on their way to a 2-1 defeat after three minutes, the worst answer a coach can give when people are asking when and how the corner will be turned.

There is a formula to scoring against Leeds and whether Marsch thinks so or not, there was no watching Villa’s opening goal and avoiding the thought that everyone watching had seen the dance before.

It was a Leeds corner that did it, their chance to attack and their Kryptonite, the high-line positions where numbers count against them and counters murder them. Villa worked their way out, Boubacar Kamara carried possession towards a defence low on bodies and Leon Bailey stepped inside Pascal Struijk to wrap his left foot around the ball and find the far corner. The shades of colour vary slightly but that was the concession, the one that always lurks in the shadows.

It is a fact with this Leeds team that the things they do badly obscure the things they do well. If Bailey’s early strike was Villa’s invitation to run riot then the memo failed to reach Unai Emery’s side. It was Leeds who pushed the pace before half-time, Leeds who played high up the pitch and Villa who trod carefully towards the interval, not helped by an edict to pass out from the back which seemed to overstretch their back four.

A goalline clearance denied Rodrigo an equaliser, late in the first half. A ridiculously good save from Emi Martinez saw off Jack Harrison’s near-certain finish. An offside flag ruled out a Rodrigo tap-in. A slight shift in the margins would have seen a shift in the scoreline. But many a season has been lost to that.

It sums up where Leeds are mentally, telling themselves that at some stage this will turn or turn and stick to a degree which consolidates Marsch’s precarious-looking job. They were better than Villa and more joined up than Villa, allowing for the fact Emery is newly in the door in Birmingham.

The press was hungry and coordinated and it left an onlooker conflicted, picking over a side who are a soft touch in some moments but hard to live with in others. It is only fair, in criticising Marsch, to acknowledge the points where he is being kicked where it hurts by the distribution of fortune and last night was one of those.

Leeds and Villa always bring out a little madness in each other, a recent rivalry which manifested itself unintentionally or without anyone realising it was happening. The fixture has spawned Kemar Roofe in the 93rd minute, the walk-in goal that made headlines globally, a Patrick Bamford hat-trick and the 3-3 tear-up at Villa Park last season which, unbeknown to most people on the night, set the ball rolling for Bielsa’s exit.

Leeds are an emotionally volatile club but there is something to be said for living in peace or going through spells when, as Marsch said on Thursday, “we don’t have to talk about the table”. A year has gone by with him as manager, just about, and the Premier League does not give the impression that it is more intimidated than it was by Leeds back then.

Villa found the going hard, though, and were grateful when VAR intervened to overturn an offside flag raised when Emi Buendia headed in the rebound from a Bailey shot midway through the second half. They needed the breathing space of 2-0 and the goal was like popping a balloon.

Suddenly Emery’s side found some flow. Suddenly Marsch was launching on Bamford for his first appearance in an eternity and Bamford, aided by the flair of Willy Gnonto, came up with a goal late on, his first since December 2021. A 2-1 defeat was incoming anyway and the striker, like Leeds, could only pick bones from the carcass.

In the morning, as Leeds were making final preparations for Villa, Georginio Rutter was starting a medical before his proposed move from Hoffenheim. His arrival cannot hurt, assuming the move proceeds as planned, and the club are considering following up his purchase with a firm approach for Angers’ Azzedine Ounahi, Morocco’s World Cup breakout player. They are deals which would change the complexion of the dressing room and, at this juncture, the injection of fresh blood which a club in difficulties invariably needs.

But whatever new faces promise, or whatever materialises from the market, the immediacy of the situation Leeds are in will not go away and nor will the suspicion that the team are failing systematically too regularly.

Marsch called last night the “most complete performance” under him and denied that with the season short of the halfway point, Leeds could be classed as being in a relegation battle. More of this, he said, and the project would come good. The truth is going to take sides soon.

There were brief chants of ‘Marsch Out’ from the away end at 2-0 and it was another evening where you would have given a penny for the thoughts of the man whose responsibility for Leeds United is final. The story of Villa Park was one of misfortune. But the overall picture isn’t.