What's the injury latest?
Luke and Junior are really looking strong and getting better every day but not ready for Chelsea. We'll see, I'd say maybe a week or two away, they’re looking better and better.
Coops has been on the pitch, I think him and then Pat as well but you know they're a little bit day-to-day so we'll have to see how that factors in for Chelsea and then Joffy is back in training and ready to go, Stuart’s still coming along with his injury.
How late in the day would you make a decision on Patrick before the Chelsea game?
Yeah, I would say it's probably a decision that we'll be ready to make tomorrow. We know we can’t risk him and that we don't want him to pick up further injury. But he's feeling good, he's looking good. So let's see.
Was taking him off at Southampton precautionary?
It was a precaution and then it's just being precautionary with him in general. We know after having almost missed an entire season that we just have to be really intelligent with how we manage everything. So we'll be prepared if he's ready to go and if he's done and the end of that game.
Read more: Pascal Struijk's Chelsea lessons as he approaches toughest Leeds United left-back test yet
At the end of that game of St. Mary's, obviously you were in the lead and drew the match in the end. Did that highlight to you the areas in the squad where you need to strengthen?
I think it highlighted first that our subbing strategy and maybe needing to act quicker and what we needed at the moment. I certainly looked back and thought I could have acted quicker and maybe brought some different legs on and fresher legs. I thought that the tactical changes that we tried to make were good but then we allowed them to beat us in the ways that exactly we didn't want to get beat, managing the game the right way.
We talked about not going into protection mode, remaining aggressive, we felt like we got the lead because we were very aggressive in our pressing and our counter pressing and our ball movement. We stopped playing, one of the things I said to the team is we had 38 build-ups before the 2 -0 lead. After the 2-0 lead, we only had two so you know it's about aggression with and against the ball and then it's about managing the game in the right way the way we want it to be. So, yeah, there's lessons to be learned. We haven't had a lot of those situations since I've been here. But we'll learn from it and we'll get better.
We're entering the final days of the transfer window. Our colleagues in Sky Italia are reporting that you've put in a bid for Wilfried Gnonto, at Zurich. Is there anything you can tell us about kind of business you're looking to do?
We know him. I think we think very highly of him. He's a young talented player. I think we're very active in pursuing things and we have some strategies. Let's see how they play out. We still have time and I think that there will be movement with us and with other teams. I think some dominoes will start to fall and then we have to be prepared to act on those situations. It's a long time since we've made our last transfer but I can tell you that the conversations and the work behind the scenes has been very, very active.
And looking ahead to Chelsea I'm sure you've seen the clash on the touchline between Tuchel and Conte, are you looking forward to a friendly handshake before and after game with some circle?
He won’t be there, right?
We're still waiting to find out for sure.
Are they saying he might be able to be on the bench? I mean, if you get a red card, you're out of match. I would be disappointed if they allowed him to be on the bench. There's a simple rule in football, whether it's soccer, football, I think if you get a red card, you can't play the next match.
In the first game you had that slight altercation with Bruno Lage, is it obvious you will always have those emotions in the touchline?
I even sent an email to Bruno. Just because I wanted to clear the air after the match. Emotions are always part of the game. But again, I have a lot of respect for Bruno.
I have a lot of respect for all the managers in this league you don't get to this level without having a great career and being very good at what you do and nothing says that more than the level of preparation it requires for every match. That shows you how sophisticated all the teams are. So yeah, it's a challenge.
Obviously we all want to win. My thing is always to stay calm and stay in the match so that I help our team at all moments, but obviously the competitive edge that that you want your team to present. Every match is a big part of what helps you be successful. So I don't know if I’m not always good at that, but I try.
Liam Cooper, are you not ruling him out at this stage? Is it similar to Patrick?
Yeah, I would not rule him out. But obviously he's been out for a while but he's looking strong. Like he was really strong in a pitch today. So but I think if it's not Sunday, he'll be ready very soon. Same with Patrick.
Forshaw got 45 minutes with the U21s, he is very much part of your plans?
Adam's ready, for sure. So is Luis Sinisterra. Joffy didn't feature in that match, but he's ready for sure. So you know we're hopeful to keep pushing fitness levels and I think we are very fit and then keep getting healthy so that we have for complementing
There’s a 21s game tonight, Archie Gray has had a virus but will he be involved?
I don't know if he will start that match, but he will be involved in that match. So will Darko. So yeah, we're really happy with both of those guys. But Archie was in training this week as well.
You said the dominoes are ready to fall maybe in the transfer market, does it feel like that £35 million that was committed to go and get De Ketelaere is burning a big hole? And you want to spend it?
Yeah, I mean, of course every manager wants as many good players in their team as possible and I said this at I think last week’s press conference. Good players make good managers, not the other way around.
However, within that we've worked really well as a team and Andrea has tried to support everything that we've tried to accomplish from a transfer perspective. Certainly Victor is working tirelessly with Andrea behind the scenes to achieve some of our goals. It's hard for everyone in this moment to stay patient but the work that's been done already in this transfer window, I think, is at a really high level. And I think we're trying to make sure that that we're doing the same due diligence to support everything we're doing here.
Someone like Gnonto, is he Premier League ready?
No. I didn't even know that that's out there. But we know who he is. And with him it'd be more of a long term project. And maybe you can then with that comment read into whether it's going to happen this transfer window or if it can't happen, this transfer window or not, or in the future.
That's one thing with working with Victor, he's incredibly organised in looking at what we need now, what we need in the winter, what we need next summer, what we need two years from now and really looking at how everything pieces together. I think if you looked at all the teams in the Premier League and which players are locked in for the longest, I think we're maybe if not the highest then we're close to the one of the clubs that has more players locked in for longer time. So it gives the manager a chance, I think, to really develop something. And that's what we're hopeful of.
You have done quite a bit of tightening, Kun Temenuzhkov, has now left the club according to what we've seen today, but will Mateo Joseph go out on loan or Ian Poveda?
With Ian first of all, it hasn't been easy for him because he hasn't featured really too much with us in pre-season, but he's had an incredible mentality and worked really hard every day and he's a good guy to have around.
It's likely that we probably find another solution for him for a loan in this time, but that's not set in stone. But he's been really good with the whole process and we want we want him to find a place to play. Mateo Joseph will stay, I think he'll continue to work with the 21s and continue to mature and grow. I had a good video meeting with him yesterday, or two days ago now and we're really happy with him and I think he's inching himself closer and closer to first team possibilities.
You mentioned that you'd be disappointed at Thomas Tuchel was on the touchline on Sunday, but also how much of an advantage and how much influence you could he has by being on the sidelines?
In theory when the managers not there that it's an advantage but I also know Zsolt Love quite well, their assistant, and he's a brilliant football mind. I have no doubt that he would be able to help out from there. I was probably tossed out of games too much in the MLS and so I developed strategies on how to deal with that. One of the strategies was seeing if the team could take more ownership and that's a big that's a tenet of my leadership principles.
I've always assumed, this has nothing to do with Thomas Tuchel or anyone else, but I've always assumed that when a manager gets a red card that he's suspended for the next match.
How aware are you of the rivalry that exists between Leeds and Chelsea going way back?
Yeah, I have been told about it, even from someone like me, the 60s is a long, long time ago, which I guess I'm happy to say, but this is the beauty of this club, you can meet someone in the streets who's five years old or 95 years old, and they've got Leeds United stories.
I think in the moment, it's all about how good Chelsea is. And us just managing one of the best opponents in the world.
Do Chelsea have a chance of winning the Premier League?
Yeah, we're only two years removed or a year and three months removed from them winning the Champions League and I think that they've continued to add to their squad in a really good way. They have amazing players, I was even presenting them to the team today and a few different things. I said, ‘yeah, this player is good and then that player is good. and then he's good at this. I said, no, they're all good.’
I love these games because of that. it's such a massive challenge and the biggest thing is that our players understand the plan and that they can go out and go after the game. I think we have a team that can that can cause some havoc against an opponent like this right now. At home, I think we always enjoy playing in Elland road, I think you can see that in the beginning stages that the team is coming together in a good way. We're trying to develop a good plan and a plan that is easy enough for them to execute and then we just want them to go on the pitch and play to their abilities and if we do that, as a group, we have a chance. I think we definitely have a chance
Rodrigo is amongst the goals this season. Last year that some of the fans were getting on his back, has he gone away in the summer and thought about that and reassessed?
I think he's always very fit, but he's come in really fit and very determined from pre-season. He's taken a lot of the things that he and I and we have talked about in terms of the principles that we're trying to institute every day and applied them more and more at a higher and higher level. He’s had an outstanding preseason, I think he had a goal against Palace, three goals against Cagliari and then the three goals now in the first two matches so it's not random, I think it's a culmination of him adapting to the league, to me, to what we're trying to achieve and the confidence has grown in him massively.
I was saying to him today that of our entire leadership council now he's one of the guys that we know will be starting, he’ll wear the captain’s armband, he'll be ready to take penalties, he'll be ready to be a leader on the pitch and he'll be ready to execute the match plan at the highest level of his quality. I think that says a lot about him in how he's adapted and how he's rose to the challenge and difficult moment. So really happy with him, really happy for him. And certainly he'll be important for us on Sunday.
How do you assess the situation at left-back? How you think Pascal is doing and is that still something that you know, looking to potentially strengthen?
I think Pascal is doing great, I think Junior is ready and he's looked really strong, even in rehab training. I think Leo Hjelde played really well in the 21s game. So currently I feel strong in that position.
So maybe at the beginning of when Junior got hurt and we weren't sure, but we wanted to look a little at Leif Davis. We wanted to look a little at Pascal we wanted to look a little at Leo and right now I feel like we've covered that position really well and right before this I had a video session with Pascal and for me he's getting better and better every match and getting more and more comfortable there. So I think that yeah, we feel good now
With the striker situation is it a bit harder to answer because of like the form Rodrigo is in, you've got Joffy waiting to come in and does that make it hard to weigh up whether you need a Premier League ready striker?
I still feel to balance it out our squad effectively it would be helpful. But we need the right guy. We need the right guy. And I don't want to bring in somebody that's going to take three months to adapt and educate and then not be ready to help us. So there's the fact the variables in terms of how prepared are they are, are, do they understand the type of football we want to play? Do they understand the league? Can they play with this kind of quality at this kind of level? Can they run at the level and press at the level and also then be ready to play and be intelligent enough to execute our match plans for what we need?
Those are the factors, so it's not just yeah, we need a striker and pick them out of the sky. It's who is the guy that can meet the standards and the balance of what we need within the squad?
Rasmus Kristensen, what sort of feedback are you giving him from those first couple of games and do you think Cody Drameh is a realistic guy to put some pressure on him?
First of all, I know Rasmus really well, I know the quality has and I also knew that adapting to the league was going to be a challenge for him. I think he's done well and I think he knows that there's a lot to be learned and that it's a level up. One of the things I said to him, was listen, the reason you came here was to get out of your comfort zone and to challenge yourself and to believe that you can adapt and grow and get better from the situation.
We went through this even a little bit at Salzburg. For me, after two years and this last year in Salzburg, he was probably their best player, their most impactful player. He said to me, ‘yeah, I feel like I was making 10-20 impactful moments per match at Salzburg, Champions League, in the league, whatever, and here, it's hard for me to make one or two or three’. I said ‘yeah, the level's big’ and he agrees, he thinks even the opponents we've had that the levels been above Champions League and the demands, which says a lot about the league.
We try, even when we're when we're recruiting, to say, ‘okay, you can go to a Champions League club, or you can play Champions League every week, and that's what this league is’. And I talked to him even about my adaptation and the challenges that I have to accept and my mistakes and my successes and, and why I'm here. This is about all of us really rising to the challenge and learning from everything we do and adapting and getting better and that's the project. So I want players to embrace those challenges and I know he will, and I know he'll grow from it every day.
Cody for me has been fantastic. I spoke with him after the training today and I said, he's a guy that if we need him I know that we can count on him. I think he's trained really well. He's performed really well in pre-season matches. He's fit and ready to go. I thought he played well in the 21s match. Yeah, happy with him and then Luke, Luke will be back as well soon, so we'll have a good complement of players at that position.
When you look at Chelsea’s backline, how do you think you can unpick that lock? Do you think Joffy is a better nine, or does Rodrigo have the tools?
Well, one of the things will be fitness, not just being healthy, but being fully fit to meet the demands of what this game will be because it'll be played at a fast pace.
Chelsea plays with such tempo with the ball that they can unbalance you in many different ways. For me, their backline now with Koulibaly and Cucurella is a player that I think is absolutely fantastic. So, intelligence, experience, quality, athleticism, what a formidable defence and then a great goalkeeper behind them. It's not random that they wouldn't want to go first game they gave up almost no goals and even last year.
We will make it difficult on them, we will try to press them in the right moments, we're not going to just sit back and take pressure. We're going to be aggressive with the ball, we want to be brave., we want to challenge them. They're also incredibly good on set pieces and we saw this with Koulibaly, he's a beast. So yeah, big challenge for us and one that we're truly, truly excited about, truly excited.
Jesse we know you're interested in your history. I just wonder how important or relevant you think it is the players know the history of this football club?
Yeah, I think it's massively important because playing in front of these fans, you have to know the identity of the club what Elland road is, what it means, the identity of Yorkshire and the type of people here, what's important to them what they want to see on match day, which of course they want to see a quality football team but they want to see 11 fighters on the pitch at all moments.
I've said this before, it's why I think I fit here because this is the way I'm built, to never back down and be ready for every challenge. We have a team that I think has shown that already. I think already that the team that the fans are embracing and will continue to grow in that way.
Because with some of your predecessors, Howard Wilkinson was a famous example, he tried to take down all the pictures in the past because he felt it was a burden. You seem to think it's a good thing.
I love being at a club, maybe if you have an English perspective, maybe you're so used to story pasts of clubs. Now the league is so multicultural, I think embracing the identity of the club is one of the most important things no matter where you go. I think you have to understand the fans, the history, the ex players, the expectations for what it means. And each club has its own identity and no doubt we do. So I love it. I love it.
What have you made of Pulisic at Chelsea?
Yeah, Christian I think is a big, big talent, he’s the biggest in our country. The expectations for someone like him transfer fees, clubs, he's been at our very high and I think he's met a lot of those high expectations. But I think with his talent that people are continuing to demand more from him and it's normal in some ways.
I've never had the chance to work with him, I've only played competed against him and he's scored. I think every time I've coached against him, he's scored. So I don't have too many negative criticisms about him, but I would enjoy the chance to work with him at some point, whether it's with the national team in the distant future or whatever, but I think he's a big talent.
I like his personality. He's created a lot of firsts for American players. So I think our respect for him is very high in our country.
On Rodrigo, If he is captain at the weekend, how big a deal will that be for him mentally?
It’s awesome, he took the captain's band when Patrick came off and scored two goals and I think carried the team and worked his butt off to try to finish the game off.
There was no question in my mind that I was leaving him on the pitch because he was playing fantastic. And, you know, I think he's embraced that responsibility. An attacking player, you need goals, you need goals to give you confidence, it boosts you in a lot of ways but I think he’s just in good form.
He's clear with what we're trying to accomplish and I think there's even a lot more room for improvement. So we're going keep pushing him.
Jesse, you mentioned the importance of history. Have the players been given a history lesson about this fixture?
No, I don't think so. When Andrea spoke to the team, he gave a video with a lot of the history of the club, before a lot of them had been recruited, Victor has incredible scenes from the past and talks about trophies and the identity. This is the main thing, it's one thing to talk about the history of the club for me and another to talk about the identity. But the history means something to the identity, they're not separate.
For me, that's what's so much more important that they that we understand exactly what our fans demand, and that we represent that. Again, I think it's just focusing on this moment, Chelsea is an incredible club, one of the richest in the world, one of the best teams in the world with an incredible coach, who hopefully won't be on the bench. That's entirely our focus right now.
If you've got a manager who's raging on the touchline is it still possible and you’ve been there yourself, is it still possible to think clearly and rationally and deliver what you mean?
I mean, I don't think Tuchel is raging on the bench, but I think there are managers that are the opponents on the day that you know are going to be active with referees and you have to sometimes have a strategy that you have to match that energy and combat it. My experience after however many games now what is it, 14 matches, is most of the managers in this league are focussed clearly on getting the most out of their teams on that day. That in itself is the challenge of this league.
You're in this business a long time and there's times for emotion and there's time for concentration and how you can flip the switch immediately so that you need whatever you need at the right moment. Even for me emotion sometimes is calculated, like I say, if I don't feel like the refs are responding to the things I'm asking then I don't have another solution other than to elevate my energy, emotion, whatever and that you have to try and now make a statement in that way.
It's why I'm not afraid to take yellow sometimes on the bench. It's not just that I'm emotional or upset, it's also the strategy that you have to employ sometimes.
Did you get a reply, by the way from Bruno?
Not yet, but I sent it to him recently and I know he's busy.
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