Before we start some will say I’m just having another go at Jesse Marsch, but far from the truth. Feeling exactly like every Leeds fan at the moment, disappointed and the pro-Marsch fans will also be wondering when things will pick up. This is just a few facts and looking at the trajectory we are on, which needs to change. I cannot make facts look a bit more Rosey and think everyone on this site knows things are not right, but have different opinions on the way to put it right. I am of the belief that Leeds Utd should be winning more games against teams around us in the league, and also teams who are similar in financial terms. (Squad value, squad spend) We should be beating teams that have just been promoted for example. This season we have dropped too many points against these teams, which could be crucial for the run-in. We are behind teams in the league who we should be ahead of or at least on a par with. Fulham, Brighton and Brentford are way ahead of us and then we have Palace, Villa, Leicester and Bournemouth to catch. Just below us we have Everton and West Ham, Forest, Wolves and Southampton. We are only a couple of points ahead of the drop zone, but in my view we should be competing at a much safer league level, after-all the favourites for relegation this season were the 3 promoted team closely followed by Brentford, Everton and Southampton. Wish we were up there with Fulham and Brentford instead of messing with Forest and Southampton at the bottom. There are calls for Marsch to go, but in reality it’s the fault of the Board. Orta says we have been following Jesse Marsch for a couple of years so had done our Due Diligence. I question that because looking at the stats it would seem the DD was stopped after Salzburg. Marsch must have thought soccer coaching was easy because he was winning everything. At New York he had a 50% win ratio and at Salzburg he had a 68% win ratio which is awesome. AtNew York he had a +81 goal difference and at Salzburg he had +177 goal difference which is incredible but having Haaland helps. However he left Salzburg for Leipzig in Germany and his win ratio fell to 38% and then at Leeds he has a 30% ratio which is relegation stuff. His goals difference at Leipzig fell to +12 but has gone back even further at Leeds to -10. However I feel the die has been cast now and it’s too late to do anything, so feel we just have to trust Marsch and hope we can start to win games again as 2 points from the last 3 games is pants and his record against top 6 teams is better than our record against teams around us. I don’t feel we have a specific style of play anymore as Marsch is desperate to show the media he has a plan B, so he can differentiate himself from Bielsa, and thats where he has gone wrong in my view. His former Red Bull players don’t seem to know what he wants or how he wants to play. There were times on Wednesday night that looked like Sunday League football with 5 or 6 Leeds players battling against a couple of WH players out on the left and the ball ricocheting around in desperation. As usual we lose the ball and a simple pass then puts us under pressure at the back as half our players then try to get back and defend. Our passing is garbage when under pressure and every team that we play from the lower end of the table just presses us and by doing that we are prone to losing the ball, plus we end up going sideways and backwards and that shows everyone how bad we are at the back as we cannot play out from the back and just end up hoofing it. The better teams play us with arrogance and think they will beat us with their better players and sometimes they do, but we have had success this season by doing to them what the lower teams do to us. Jesse now needs to get his style of play nailed down and make sure all his players know their jobs. We know he’s under pressure but if he doesn’t want to end up losing his job like the other former Red Bull coaches have in the Premier League, he needs to find himself a signature style of his own and drill it. Klopp was a former Ralf Ragnik apprentice but he knew that style needed to be tweaked to work over here and he did that to great success. Ragnik himself at Man Utd was poor and lost his job, Ralf Hesnhutel at Southampton got found out by every team and gradually Southampton went backwards until he was sacked. Even Wagner at Huddersfield soon lost his job. Adapt or die Jesse and so far after almost a year we are where we were and haven’t moved forward. Jesse for your own good get back to the style that got you the job, maybe with a tweak, because for own sanity and to keep the fans off your back. There are times in every game where we see something of beauty so we know you and the players can do it, we just need more of that and less Black Dog pub stuff
We're a point above Bournemouth with a game in hand. I notice preseason we were joint 4th favs to go down at odds of 5/2 (3.50) and now at odds of 4/1 (5.0). Obviously Fulham/Brentford massive overperformers. Saints/Everton/Wolves doing worse than expected. Preseason Now Going to be interesting again for sure, but certainly not too bad at present.
You could put Pep in charge of this lot and his win percentage would drop. Or you could put our back 4 in to any side in the CL and watch them crash out of the comp. That's not me sticking up for Marsch again btw. That's me saying we don't, as a club, have the tools to compete anywhere but the bottom few teams in the league. We need new owners and a substantial upgrade to the playing staff. Jury is still out on Marsch but I don't blame him for where we are......yet. I also don't think we are that bad a side. Mistakes cost us. Cut them out or limit them substantially and we will comfortably get more points on the board. Things aren't as bad as this time last season.
Spot on as usual emu. Couple of marsh luvvies though aren’t we - we protest too much By the way I thought Southampton were mad to sack hassenhutl. He’s done great for them on a relative shoestring. His sides quite often outplayed the big boys, though they were inconsistent. They punted on buying teenage future superstars in the summer who clearly aren’t ready yet.
3 images of the build up to Strujk conceding the penalty that show why we’re all over the place and it’s the same every game. This was 3 mins before HT and our press leaves West Ham with 4 attackers against 3 defenders. Then when play reaches the edge of our box 5 of our players are all attracted to the player with the ball leaving a massive overload for Struijk to try and deal with. We actually have 7 defenders back to deal with 5 attackers but became we’re not organised properly it’s headless chicken stuff.
I dispute our defenders are crap when we all know that we are talking about the defenders who got us up to 9th in the league season before last. A German international and a Spanish international. The tactics we are using now leaves our defenders exposed when we get turned over, it’s not hard to see that. Marsch maybe needs different CBs because our are not made for his tactics, which again points to Orta getting it wrong choosing Marsch or Marsch has changed his tactics making the defence even more vulnerable. I just refuse to blame the players, except when they make stupid personal errors. Rodrigo crap cross field pass, Cooper’s crap pass to Koch, Aaronsons crap pass etc that’s the fault of players and not coaching.
The next argument is going to be but the defenders nearly got us relegated last season. Yes but Ayling out injured and suspended, Koch out injured and covid, Cooper out injured and suspended, Llorente out injured twice and covid. The whole team was decimated last season with injuries and we square pegged. Under Bielsa we would be vulnerable to conceding when his high octane pressing game failed and it did last season…. I think we have better players this season even with Bamford out injured still. We have a bigger squad than last season but we are exactly where we were this time last year. Marsch has averaged just less than a point per game in 11 months, which is relegation form. We are scoring more but conceding loads. So in a year there has been no improvement in form
That’s precisely why we are a bad side. We can’t cut out those mistakes. How many years have we been making them?
obviously the injuries had a big impact on us last season Doc, though the consensus was we were flat from the off before they really kicked in. It does make direct comparisons difficult, but the facts say we conceded more goals per game under bielsa than marsch last season and this.
I'd still rather Bielsa was coaching the likes of Tyler Adams and Aaronson though instead of Jesse. Anyway enough of the nostalgia as it's the present that matters and the past is the past. With that in mind I'm 100% behind Marsche and if (as we should) we survive this season and strengthen again in the summer I'm confident next season will be a less stressful one for him.
A lot of illness in our camp and a weakfish team playing tonight. The U18s is cancelled against Sunderland tomoz due to illness up there and at TA. In fact Archie Gray is now out I’ll too
loved bielsa… sometimes feel like I’m trashing him when defending marsch on here - but it’s not the intent… just trying to draw parallels. You know me… mr impartial.
Took Fulham two or three relegations and changes in coaches before eventually getting it right. Are we too loyal to some of our fringe players or is it a money saving exercise. For example we stuck with Roberts for several seasons when it was obvious he’d never be pl standard. Wouldn’t mind betting Firpo will be still knocking around in a couple of years.
That’s fine mate but remember our squad is worth more than Fulham’s, and we spent a lot more than Fulham. No and whereas Fulham can afford to bounce we can’t if we go down we may never recover. Everton for example are now so much in debt and have stupid wages and contracts that relegation may mean Everton do a Leeds.
Both everton and the scum have put out strong teams tonight, hope the toffees win so frank keeps his job.
I would put us around 10th if we had one of the better coaches in the division with who we have now to select from
