Leeds United head coach Jesse Marsch sat down with the media on Thursday afternoon to preview this weekend's crucial game against Watford at Vicarage Road. The Whites are looking to stretch their unbeaten run to three matches after picking up seven points from their last nine available, while Roy Hodgson's side can close the gap on their relegation rivals with a positive result.
"I'll talk about some injuries which I have done recently and we'll go onto other questions," Marsch began his press conference. "No real updates other than Tyler, Junior and Patrick are all making good progress. Jamie Shackleton is almost ready to train but not quite. Most of the other players are available and ready to go."
Jesse, you had Liam and you had Kalvin back last week in some shape or form. How significant was that for you in terms of the weeks to come?
"I said after the match that both have a big effect on our group, both on the pitch and off. I thought Liam put a courageous 90-plus minute performance and was one of our best players in the match. He matched tactically what we wanted from the game, which I think for his first run-out with the group was really impressive. He adapted really quickly and easily. Then to have Kalvin on the pitch, I think everyone saw that it brought poise to our group, he settled the game down. I heard him say after the game he didn't do much, but just by being on the pitch for us I think that presence meant a lot. Really great to have those guys back and we've used this week to get him up to 100%, so I think they will be ready to contribute come Saturday."
READ MORE: Roy Hodgson gives Watford injury update as he outlines Leeds United 'opportunity'
Another twist last night with Burnley beating Everton and the bottom of the table looks even more intriguing at the moment. Watford are eight behind you, so what are you expecting from them?
"I think Watford are a really disciplined, defensive group. They don't give much away, they stay pretty organised, they stay very compact. Sometimes they defend deep but are often incredibly aggressive and lethal in transition. They have the second-most chances and shots in transition in counter phases in matches in the league. It's because they really try to play to their strengths. So, we have to be very aware that Watford are often most dangerous when we have the ball. We have to make sure we are balanced in how compact we are, how we defend, our counter-pressing to make sure we don't their attacking players to be in open spaces and running at our defensive group. So, it's a little bit tricky preparing for them because they rotate a lot of players. They are a talented group, have a lot of one-v-one players, every time I prepare for a match in this league, it's hard to find weaknesses in the ways that teams do things. I know Watford are team towards the bottom of the table and are fighting relegation, but I still think Roy Hodgson has done a good job with them. They are disciplined, organised and it won't be an easy match for us."
There is some footage on the training ground with Roy in his training gear. He is well into his 70s, wonderful that a manager just gets involved in a session to that extent?
"I have watched him for years. There is a lot of different places he has been with the national team and he has had an incredible career. The passion he still has at his age is something to admire. I don't know what I'll be doing at his age because a year in a managers' life can feel like 10. I have so much respect for what he has accomplished during his career, no doubt."
Do you get involved much on the training ground?
"I like to run training sessions, if we do little exercises and need an extra man I can jump in and play sometimes. I'm very, very limited and hate being the guy that looks so old on the pitch. But that's the reality of what I am. With everything I do with the group, I try to convey an energy that is about being positive, aggressive, enjoying our work together but also getting better every day. So, that includes when I step out onto the pitch and playing."
In terms of the way the fixtures are panned out, once you play Watford there is a huge gap between games, how difficult is it?
"When the schedule comes out and we have to play a lot of games in a short amount of time, or we have a pause, it is about using those moments as best we can to maximise every experience we have. I'm not the type that looks at when we have short turnarounds or when we have long pauses, I think with short turnarounds it is an opportunity to give more players minutes and an opportunity to play to show they are ready. But my job is to prepare the group to ensure every player is ready and that is so important in those moments. When we are still adapting to a style of play, both technically and physically, a little more time can be a real benefit. So, for me, right now it is about focusing on everything we need to do to be prepared for what Saturday is going to require."
30 points feels like you're nearly there, but when you look at the games you have left with Arsenal, City and Chelsea, how important is it for you to get the points as quickly as you can?
"I only look at this match right now. I think we have to understand the mindset of Watford and how it is a massive opportunity for them to collect points and close the gap. So, for us to focus entirely on what this game requires, to understand we are playing against a good team at their place. It won't be easy, all of these things are exactly what we've focused on and prepared for. So, our group, especially after Aston Villa, has shown an understanding of what is exactly necessary for every match. We will make sure we do that very carefully and prudentially for this one."
A month here now, can you give us some reflections on how you've settled in. You seem to be a nice fit?
"I am really happy here in every way. My family is here, we love living in this area. We find the people here in Yorkshire incredibly friendly, open and helpful. The club has a lot of expertise and a lot of really wonderful people. Then working with the players and the team has been amazing. So, I feel this is a great fit for me and I just want to do every I can to help this team achieve the most it can do from game to game."
I'm asking all the managers today about the plans to expand the Champions League, the four extra places and the suggestion that maybe two of those could come available to teams who have got experience of European football. A lot of people feel it is another way of allowing the bigger clubs another place. I'm guessing you have got ambitions of pushing for those places one day. What do you think about that?
"One of the reasons I respect that tournament so much is because when I was Salzburg, you had to fight like hell to be a part of it. Even the Austrian League, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, they have to fight as a league to gain places in a tournament. That is what I love about the tournament is that you have to earn your way in and there is a little bit of a David vs Goliath in the group phases and how you manage those situations. To do anything to compromise the integrity of the tournament like they were doing with the Super League, doesn't make sense. Certainly in football, and if I come from an American sports perspective, we are all about parity and salary caps, we need to make sure everybody has a chance. I think the heavily weighted clubs are already weighted enough, and if they have a down year and aren't able to perform at the level they should then they shouldn't be included. You have to earn your way into the Champions League, that's my opinion."
Joe Gelhardt went off with the Under 23s, what is the situation there?
"One of the reasons I didn't include him in the injury report is because he hasn't trained every day this week. But we think we will train tomorrow and we think he will be available for the match on the weekend. How we use him and the situation with him, we will evaluate that as we go. With him since I have been here, it has been so unfortunate. First it was a back problem, then he caught Covid-19, and he gets this injury. We can always second guess ourselves and say we shouldn't have played players in Under 23s games if we want to play them on the weekend, but players need game practise. They need time on the pitch, they need to continue learning our philosophy of football and putting it into practice on game day. It was really important for Joffy to play in this match for us. It was a shame for him to pick this injury up, but we think he will be available for Saturday."
What injury is it, Jesse?
"It is a knock that has led to contusion and swelling, but every day has gotten better. So, again, I think he will train again tomorrow and be available."
On Crysencio Summerville, what are you making of him at the minute after scoring a hat-trick for the U23s?
"I thought he played fantastic. I think he has grown here more and more. I have talked to him about his behaviour and mentality, professional behaviour off the pitch, what he needs to be like when he shows up here and what the work week needs to be like. Then how to learn the tactics and behaviours, and for me, he has grown a lot in the past month. I think this performance is a representation of his professional behaviour, of his work ethic, his mentality to try to learn and adapt. Even when I see we're going to five substitutions in the future, I think of players like him, Joffy, Sam Greenwood, Charlie Cresswell that deserve more chances to play because of the quality they have, the work ethic they put in during week. It is a shame for me now that I can only use three substitutes to impact the game, I would love to have available now. But Cry is doing a great job of showing he is learning more, that he is more prepared and we can count on him more and more."
What's the mindset ahead of the Watford game now after last night's result?
"The reality is we are still in a relegation battle, we know that. We are not foolish or naive to that. Again, watching the table doesn't do anything to impact our work process. The best thing for us is to control ourselves and not stress about any external situations. I think we have done a really good job of that. I've tried to stay focused and calm and disciplined with that mentality since I have been here. And I think it has impacted us in a positive way, none of us think we are done or that we are safe, or that we are a completed project. It is all about pushing every day to be better and by doing that, we can fight for more points."
Do you sense there is a confidence around the squad now?
"In general, there is a confidence that the team believes in themselves more than they did a month ago! I have spoken to them openly about that, but the key is to use that confidence which can propel us forward and not get comfortable and think that everything is alright. The urgency and the mindset to push everyday has helped us get to a better place than we were and we need to continue doing that to be in a better place than we were a month ago."
What specific areas when you first arrived with how the team is playing that made you confident of the areas you need to work on in order to make sure they are at the level they are at now?
"It is easy to see the stress on the players' faces during the matches; that was the number one thing. So, when I first came, I was just trying to relieve the tension, the focus on results and the worry about what was happening in the table. Then for me to create a process and a transition for the players to play in that is slightly different to what Marcelo wanted it to be, there is so many details that go into that. But it is what I have been doing, everyday going into details, more into behaviours and creating training sessions that reinforcing exactly those things. Coming out of every game, there could be a hundred topics I could touch on. I am trying to focus on exactly the right topics that will help us for the next opponent and the process to move and get closer to ideally what I want us to be in a year or two years, whatever the process here is. To be fair, the players get that, they grasp it and they put it to practice at a high level every day. So, I said it was our best counter-pressing game, it was but we have so much room to improve there. Southampton decided to pretty much play every second pass long, so we then have to think about closing our team, picking up second balls and what actions or tactics we need from that moment. We still need to make sure we are sharp at defending set pieces and attacking set pieces. I think we have done a good job there but there is more improvement we can make. Our build-up phase was good against Southampton but how it leads to us being a little more dangerous in the final third. We are still developing our advantages in front of goal, but it is about putting the building blocks together and creating clarity for our group so they need to understand how all of those things can improve and execute on game day."
In that sense then, when things are working, it might be easier to be a bit more on board, so how difficult is it to get some of them to buy into that philosophy?
"You could ask some of them about that specifically, but what I would guess and say is that from the first day I came I laid out a tactical plan with details, terminology and I've tried with the tactics to describe how we want to play moving forward. Now they have a broader understanding of it, we can go a bit further into the details of it and it can then make a bigger difference. That's nice, it is a good feeling to be at that stage and not just throwing a million things at them. That's a credit to them and their mentality to adapt, and you use the word 'buy' and I would guess the buying has come from the fact they can see the advantages from the way we are trying to play. They can see the benefits. When they can feel the benefits on the pitch and the power of things, it can get them more excited about trying to learn more and put more to practice. That's the process that has been developed, but again, we are only in the initial phases of where I think we can really go and what the end goal will be."
A lot of the danger you have faced, has come from wide areas, how do you better protect from that in a narrow system?
"I wouldn't totally agree with that. I think that a big part of our system of moving is not that the wide areas are open, it's that we are always ready to attack in every situation together. If we are too wide, then we have too many gaps in our team and give up too much space in transition moments, crossing moments and any defensive moments. So, we're certainly not as expansive as we were in the past, but a big part of that is to control the opponent at all moments. I would say a big reason that we have defended better is because we're not so expansive. Now it's about how to still unbalance the opponent, even though we're still more compact than what we were. If you look at expected goals, chances created and any of these data points, I think we've been better in those areas. I think it is because they are understanding the tactics and strategies are, but we can still be better. By saying we don't play wide is incorrect, but we know where the goal is and it's not in the corner. It's in the middle of the field and we want to be vertical and we want to make sure that the opponent knows that we're ready to be vertical at all moments. Again, that will mean that the opponent has to be a bit more cautious about how they want to attack. So these are all strategies and the tactics match with what the strategies are. Again, I think our team is getting more and more comfortable about what that is and what that means."
With Kalvin back, you're going to be faced with midfield selection headaches - maybe a good headache to have. How much weight do you give to training performance, form or the specific needs of the opponent?
"I would say I look at all of them. I am a big believer that training means something. There are different kinds of managers, there are some that run everything, some that don't run anything and just watch to try to evaluate how players are performing. Right now we're certainly in a phase where I need to be on top of training because I am really reinforcing the behaviours that we need every day. But I have also developed an eye that while I am doing that I can also evaluate how guys are training and who's grasping concepts at the fastest rate. So an example for me is Robin Koch has performed very well in training, but he hasn't always been rewarded with decisions on matchday, but I am very much aware that when we need him, if we need him or we need to think carefully about how to use him more on game day, that his performances mean something. Then, it's looking at the opponent on every day and thinking about what's the best formation, what's the best group and how do we use all of the tools we have available and players and qualities to give us the best chance to perform and win games. I think my job is to do all of those things and then make sure that I reinforce with the player group and the team as a whole that I believe in them and I am helping them how to get better as individuals and as a group. That will lead us to decisions on game day."
We haven't talked to you too much about goalkeepers yet and what you want from them in your system. When you speak to Illan and Marcos, what is it you want from them - distribution especially and what have you made of Illan so far?
"First of all I think Illan's talent is massive. He is a young goalkeeper that is as good as any young goalkeeper I have ever seen. That's really exciting. Then he has a really good mentality, he wants to work, he wants to learn and he wants to improve. I think that Marcos has done a very good job with him as a mentor and a teacher. So they have a good relationship and I think for me, how I work, I can't go through technically and tactically every detail for a goalkeeper, like goalkeeper coaches can. The work I work is I trust the goalkeeper coach a lot to help the player adapt to the things that I want. Certainly being the last defender is always really important because we like to play very aggressively with our backline. Then what I can do with my experiences is I can see how to help a goalkeeper with his mentality, his decision making. When he has the ball in his hands, that he is the quarterback of that situation and he understands what type of rhythm of play we want from the match. I'll talk more about those types of things than I will, did he move one step to the left, did he move one step to the right - that I'm not as good at evaluating. But I think that the work Marcos and I have done together with the staff has been quite good and then the work we've had with the goalkeeper group has also been very good. That being said, the last word I said to Kristoffer before he stepped up to the [Wolves] match is that: 'he's trained well, he's had that mentality to do whatever he can to be best he can in training every day - now's the time to reward himself for that work'. I can only say that when we needed him he came up massively in a massive game and we know that now if we ever need him, he's ready to go. I love that in young goalkeepers, I had a young goalkeeper in Salzburg that we had to put into a UCL match 30 minutes in and it was a similar type message. His name was Carlos and he had a ball and a bib on, and almost entered the pitch with them because he knew it was a big, nervous moment. But he went on and played fantastic. That for me is always a reflection on the individual and the player, but also the environment we create. We believe in every guy that's here."
Last week you told us you were speaking to Victor this week about scouting and transfers and looking ahead you might look to flesh out some more details on what was said?
"Yesterday we had that meeting and to be honest we didn't go into too much detail about what our needs are, and what players we're thinking about that need to go or come. It was more about educating the scouting department what we're trying to achieve tactically, what kind of players we're looking for - creating profiles of players in each position. Also, then updating where we think we are with our current group and each individual and their adaption into what we're doing. I think it was a very useful meeting and we'll need to then continue to think about as we go forward, how we continue to squad build in a way. For me, I like to look at where we are now, where we want to be in six months, where we want to be in a year, where we want to be in two years and then kind of map out how that all starts to play itself out."
Jesse, you talked a lot about other people today. You're obviously learning as well as you go along, I'm just wondering as Roy Hodgson is such a great person to learn from, what the environment has been like between managers?
"I would say congenial, maybe too congenial for me. But I appreciate that the manager, the respect - I call it a shared misery and the respect for that shared misery in England is pretty strong. We had Adrian Heath in the US, he coached at Orlando and then he coached in Minnesota and he was always really good after the match to say: 'come and have a beer'. And I hesitantly did it, but found it incredibly rewarding. I want to acknowledge the work that other people do, I do respect and appreciate the work that other people do in this business. It's hard for me to be friendly with competitors because in my mind I want to not like them. But when I wind up liking them, I think usually the respect goes. But I like the motivation, when I am driven to want to beat someone. But like I said with Ralph Hasenhuttl, my respect for him is so high and when we play against him, I never want the players to feel the personal situation between me and the coach. I certainly feel the competitive juices on those days. Certainly I had a really nice talk with Ralph after the match, Brendan Rodgers was very generous with some time after the match. Dean Smith was mad at me for not shaking his hand so we didn't spend as much time after the match but in general I know the level of respect for the managerial work in this country is so high so it's nice to be apart of that."
Do you think it's given you a better appreciation of PL culture?
No, anyone in the world knows that this is the best league in the world and I all need to do is what opponent video when I prepare to develop high level of respect for every team and every manager because the biggest headache I have every week is watching the opposition and trying to find weaknesses, identify strengths. It means that the work we do has to be at such a high level to give us a chance. I appreciate that it makes me better and it keeps me on my toes and I certainly have to put a lot into every week but it gives you headaches."
