Marsch’s First Job At Leeds Is Obvious To All But You Can’t Deny It’s A Massive Gamble
It’s been a tough old season for Leeds United fans and it’s long appeared that, sadly, Marcelo Bielsa had lost some of his ‘genius’ as players seemed to find their limits in the Premier League and the former ‘balls to the walls’ high energy approach had lost it’s unpredictable twinkle that teams had now worked out how to counter.
Whilst Bielsa’s departure didn’t come as a great surprise with the club stuck in 16th place in the top flight, just two points ahead of the relegation zone and with only five wins to their name all campaign, Bielsa’s replacement in the shape of Jesse Marsch wouldn’t have featured highly in many Football Odds lists.
The 48-year-old American hung up his playing boots just over half a decade ago, and he had a very successful maiden spell with MLS side NY Red Bulls, before continuing his impressive win record with RB Salzburg. However, he had a far less successful time when he made the switch to RB Leipzig, picking up only eight wins in 21 games coupled with nine defeats – and they parted company with him back in December 2021 after only five months in charge.
On the back of a spell like that, making your maiden trip into the Premier League – with all the challenges that brings even for highly experienced managers – is almost a recipe for failure, and he needs to make a lot of changes and turn plenty of things around at Elland Road before a return to the Championship looks even more inevitable.
With four defeats in the last five games, and a whopping 60 goals conceded, it’s pretty obvious what Marsch needs to stamp his immediate authority on, but there are winnable games across the month of March with Leicester City, Aston Villa, Norwich City and Wolverhampton Wanderers up next and four or six points from that run would make it a far more comfortable end to the 2021/22 campaign and maybe fans will see what the new gaffer can do with a full pre-season of preparations under his belt.
With how popular Marcelo Bielsa was with fans, there are certainly big boots for Marsch to fill. Fascinating to see how he does and indeed, if the decision to let Bielsa go, proves to be the right one.
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