Three priorities sat before Jesse Marsch as he walked into Leeds United for the first time and weighed up what was needed to find success. The injury list at Thorp Arch has been the backbone to this season and when Marsch walked through the door there were three names he knew would define whether the run-in would go well or not.
One look at the 45 minutes Patrick Bamford delivered on Sunday said everything about the impact Leeds have missed in the final third with him this season. The lift that comes with players of Kalvin Phillips and Liam Cooper’s calibre was also never going to be underestimated by the American.
With Phillips and Cooper now into full training within a week of Bamford’s first start since September, Marsch can see some light at the end of the tunnel. He said: “Even when I first came, I knew getting the three main guys back to full health was going to really dictate our success, right?
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“I mean, we have a good group, but you need your best players on the pitch and so my focus has been working very closely with Rob Price (head of medicine and performance) and the medical team and the athletic trainers to do everything we can to take rapid steps forward in an intelligent way. We've managed that quite successfully.
“We still have a lot more work to do, but yes, we always kind of had a goal of ‘can we get those three guys really top fit and sharp after the FIFA break?’ So, with Pat we were a little bit ahead of schedule, with Liam and Kalvin we're about on schedule, but still we have a lot more work to do and if we can continue to manage that right that will only help us.”
Bamford, Cooper and Phillips are all in contention to start for Marsch at Wolverhampton Wanderers on Friday night in an 8pm kick-off at Molineux.
