Jesse Marsch is approaching 24 hours since he was named Leeds United’s head coach and he will be slowly getting settled into life at Thorp Arch.
As he sits behind his desk in the main office at the training complex what will be the main items on his agenda as life with Leeds gets going?
Here, we take a look at some of the items sat in his in-tray which require swift attention.
Shore up the defence
It’s an obvious one, but Marsch simply has to stop this team shipping goals. Twenty strikes have gone past Illan Meslier in the last five games, that’s a third of the entire season total, which in itself leads the Premier League rankings.
How he looks to do that remains to be seen, but if Leeds are to find a foundation which allows them to turn heavy defeats into draws and wins, they need to give themselves a chance with clean sheets.
Establish injury timelines
We have not seen Liam Cooper, Patrick Bamford or Kalvin Phillips on a football pitch for 87 days and the season is running out fast.
Marcelo Bielsa’s last assessment of their problems cast doubt on early March returns for Cooper and Phillips as had been long expected, while Bamford had not even been on the Thorp Arch grass as of last week.
Despite those public timelines, there have long been murmurings of swifter-than-expected returns for Cooper and Phillips especially.
Marsch needs to speak with Rob Price, head of medicine and performance, and swiftly establish the kind of return-to-play programme they need to get them back as soon as possible.
Understand the contract situations for key talent
Like Bielsa, Marsch is a head coach and will not directly be involved in transfer or contract negotiations, but he will work closely with Victor Orta to ensure the club moves in the right direction with unity.
Phillips and Raphinha will see their current contracts expire in the summer of 2024. Each of them have shown keenness to sign new terms this season, but talks between their representatives and Orta are yet to bear fruit.
Marsch needs to drill down into the finer details of where those negotiations are at and who he can realistically look to plan ahead with beyond next summer.
Chatting to the players directly will help him to understand where their heads are at too.
Decide on a formation
Ten minutes searching for tactical analysis of Marsch’s RB Leipzig and Red Bull Salzburg teams will cough up several formations he used.
A narrow 4-4-2 which tucked into a 4-2-2-2 and a 4-3-1-2 seemed particularly popular with Salzburg while there were 4-4-2, 4-3-3 and even 3-5-2 systems used with Leipzig as he tried to find solutions in what proved a difficult few months in Germany.
One look at the squad will show him the number of wingers he has at his disposal, but it seems most of the width in his formations have come from his full-backs or wing-backs.
Raphinha, Daniel James and Jack Harrison may be facing some retraining.
Firm up a youth policy and pathway
Bielsa chose to run with a small group of senior players at Leeds and therefore the cream of the under-23s crop was never far away from matchday squads.
Marsch will not have much choice when it comes to stocking up his 20-man matchday rosters, but what is his vision for the next generation?
We know how the club’s top brass sees the likes of Joe Gelhardt, Crysencio Summerville and Lewis Bate, but Marsch needs to establish his own policy for how and when that young talent is put to use.
Conversations with under-23 boss Mark Jackson will be critical in driving that vision forward.
