Discussion about Jesse Marsch’s time at Leeds United has been brought back up this week, after his recent social media outburst.
The Whites are in a fine position to stay in the Premier League under Daniel Farke. Our current performances are a sign of what pragmatic coaching and effective recruitment can do for a team’s survival against the odds.
Contrast that with Leeds’ last efforts to stay in the division, scraping survival on the final day under Jesse Marsch in 2022, before catastrophe in 2023 saw us drop to the EFL again.
This week has brought Jesse Marsch back into Leeds discussions, whether we like it or not.
It all stems from Sam Allardyce’s No Tippy Tappy Football podcast, where the ex-Leeds boss stated that fitness levels at the club were in the bottom three of the Premier League when he took over in May 2023.
Marsch took exception, sharing on X a graph indicating Leeds were top of the running stats across the Premier League during his time in the 22/23 campaign.
The mere presence of Marsch back in the Leeds ether unsurprisingly sparked animosity his way. To which, the American responded to a Leeds fan’s comment that they couldn’t care less about his opinion, having significantly contributed to our relegation.
Marsch’s response was: “Except we kept the team up.”
Of course, Leeds then very quickly found themselves regressing after Marsch ‘kept the team up’, tumbling towards the bottom three after a summer window heavily focused on recruiting for his style of play.
Simon Jordan takes bizarre swipe at Marcelo Bielsa in Jesse Marsch, MLS manager discussion
Simon Jordan has since waded in on the manner of Marsch’s demise at Elland Road.
He was discussing ex-MLS coach Eric Ramsay’s 44-day tenure at West Brom ending this week. Jordan believes coaches from North America haven’t been given leeway they perhaps deserve in English managerial roles.
“You bring these guys in from the MLS, first of all, I don’t think they’re good enough,” Jordan said on talkSPORT. “Notwithstanding, you don’t give them much of a chance, you stick them in teams that are struggling.
“Bob Bradley at Swansea, Jesse Marsch at Leeds, Ramsay at West Brom, they’re struggling. You don’t give them any chance to stretch their legs. It’s not a perfect landscape for American or MLS coaches to come in and be giving a fair airing.”
Jordan then expanded on his point to say that Marsch inherited a “mess” from Marcelo Bielsa.
“Some people would say Jesse Marsch, as part of the Red Bull model, did okay until he arrived in the Premier League,” Jordan continued. “Which is unforgiving at the bottom, and unforgiving in terms of picking up the mess that Bielsa had left behind.
“He kept them up.”
Jesse Marsch was given a tough task at Leeds United – But it’s not Marcelo Bielsa’s fault whatsoever
I suppose you can forgive Simon Jordan, a neutral pundit talking live on the radio, for not applying the full context to his point.
However, to blame Bielsa for Marsch not having the best tools available to achieve success at Leeds is just incorrect.
The club was in a mess during that 18 months in the Premier League post-Bielsa. That said, this was all coming from before then, due to Andrea Radrizzani. The former Leeds owner even admitted that Bielsa told him to overhaul the squad after we finished ninth. He listened to Bielsa, the man who single-handedly achieved it all, and gave him Junior Firpo and Dan James.
We spiralled towards relegation from the moment Radrizzani didn’t back Bielsa. Marsch then took the reins and delayed the inevitable with survival (thanks to Raphinha). However, he then accelerated our tumble back towards the EFL with a setup that was never, ever going to succeed in the Premier League.
Marsch was given the tools at Leeds. Despite selling two big assets in the summer of 2022, we invested heavily to shape the team to his liking. Then, we quickly learned was an unwise route to take.
He’s not a *bad* coach. Marsch is showing with Canada that he’s capable of getting good results out of his squad. But at Premier League level, it was a failure.
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