Jesse Marsch's Leeds United sacking was everything and nothing to do with Marcelo Bielsa influence - YEP 6/2/23

Leeds United have sacked Jesse Marsch just shy of a year since his appointment as Marcelo Bielsa’s replacement. YEP chief reporter Graham Smyth takes a look at why.

By Graham Smyth

Jesse Marsch's sacking by Leeds United had everything and nothing to do with Marcelo Bielsa.

It was put to the American during a dinner with the media in Spain that being the one who followed the one who followed a legend was preferable to directly succeeding one. He politely disagreed. On that evening Marsch was excellent company. Gregarious, curious, generous with his attention and his thoughts, not dominating the conversation but playing a full part. When Bielsa, inevitably, cropped up then Marsch maintained a respectful silence.

Had that been his approach from the off, when the microphones were on, then he might have enjoyed a somewhat easier ride at Leeds than he did. It was obvious, relatively quickly, that as he shot from the hip about over training, injuries and stress, he had wildly underestimated the sensitivity around Bielsa's sacking and the sheer adoration still felt towards the Argentine in these parts.

It was perfectly reasonable for Marsch to have his take on what he found when he first peered under the hood at Thorp Arch but sharing it publicly never felt wise, even it was entirely true, because Bielsa would never deign to defend himself. This wasn't why Marsch ended up getting the sack, though.

The Leeds hierarchy would likely have preferred Marsch to say less about Bielsa, or even say less in general, than he did, but they judged him on his actions and when he did enough to keep them in the Premier League there was no reluctance to back their man in the summer window.

It was in fact that backing, particularly a trio of signings with prior experience of Marsch's football, that confirmed just how much he was their man. Leeds went all in with Marsch, who Victor Orta had long admired and earmarked as a potential successor to Bielsa, from whom Angus Kinnear said the club had to evolve. And they stayed in with Marsch. Even when the season's bright start gave way to dark clouds, defeats and a run of results that led to significant supporter discontent.

For fans, initial reservations over Marsch's narrow, frenetic brand of football never really went away. Staying up and a relatively positive summer window at least handed him a stay of execution in the court of public opinion but what was always obvious was the speed at which fans could turn if the results weren't there. It took far longer for patience to run out for his predecessor, not only because he had so much credit in the bank thanks to a Championship title and top 10 Premier League finish, but because Bielsaball thrilled. And with much less beauty on display, it was always going to turn ugly if the wins didn't come.

Had Marsch been sacked after the loss at Leicester in late October, or the defeat at home to Fulham a few days later, then it would not have been a wildly unpopular decision in the stands or the pubs. Any club pulling the trigger around that time would have been handing a new man what was, in essence, a pre-season with the vast majority of his squad and then a January transfer window. But on Leeds went, with Marsch, those victories over Liverpool and Bournemouth apparently providing the justification the board needed to stick with him through a World Cup pause that looked like a natural fire break.

Those were his last league wins. The winter camp in Spain yielded much positivity and team bonding time but its effects on the pitch looked negligible because what was seen on the training pitch did not make much of an appearance in games. Failing to win any of the six Premier League games that followed the break set Marsch up for, at the very least, some difficult conversations with a board who backed him right up until they sacked him - the January window giving him another three senior players and a potential £70m worth of squad options. And by the end of the Forest match and its joyless, idea-free second half, the fans had seen and heard enough from the head coach. In truth, he lost them months ago and when that is the case there is rarely ever coming back for a manager.

It was the City Ground performance, specifically following the break, and the strength of feeling among supporters at full-time, that proved too much for Marsch's grip on his job. In the wake of his sacking, that grip has taken on a retrospective frailty that contrasts sharply with his strength of feeling around unity and alignment. As it transpired, it was the board and the fans who were, for the first time since Bielsa's sacking, aligned.

Marsch left the building not because he wasn't Bielsa, but because he did not give the people or the powers that be what it is they demand. For the fans, joy. For both them and the board, results.

Chief executive Kinnear described the recruitment of Marsch as the culmination of a process that sought to find a coach who shared the same fundamental ideology as Bielsa. What they found was one who seemed perfectly capable of motivating players and giving them cause to run through walls, but what they did not find was the man to plot thrilling and effective ways past defensive walls the likes of which Forest threw up on Sunday. Very little over the past year has taken on the feel of an evolution from Bielsa.

Just as proximity to the drop zone did for the Argentine, at a time when the team looked lost, it did for the American. Marsch believed to the end that the turning point was close. He believed in himself and a group of players he undoubtedly cared for. The project. The process. He could talk about it until the cows came home, he just couldn't prove it.

You could argue all day, if you were so inclined, over player development during Marsch's time and whether or not he got the best or even better from players. There's no arguing with the league table, though. Equally, there's no arguing with a fanbase convinced that the brand of football they're being served up is not for them and not capable of taking them where they want to go. The more they saw, the less they liked it, and there's never a future in that.

Football, his football, and the results it brought, were Marsch's downfall. He had almost a year, his own players and his own staff and it still didn’t work. Not being Bielsa was a problem, it was always going to be a problem for whoever arrived last February, it just wasn't the problem. A nice man, Jesse Marsch. A good man. Not the right man.