Street fights like Leeds United’s relegation scrap need nous, cunning, granite jaws and a piercing jab. The experience of Jesse Marsch’s leadership council could be badly missing on the field this weekend.
If Liam Cooper is ruled out of Sunday’s Arsenal trip, there will be four of the seven in that top-tier group missing. The armband, as it has done for so much of this second half of the season, will rest with Luke Ayling, the man in the squad so many on the terraces and within the club turn to when the chips are down.
The bigger run-in questions lie in store for Kalvin Phillips and Rodrigo. Just as Marsch felt he was restoring all of his leaders to the field for the most significant stretch of the season, he could be missing more than half of them this weekend.
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Patrick Bamford, Phillips and Cooper were all coming back from their issues, but two have question marks hanging over them once more. Stuart Dallas and Adam Forshaw have then found themselves out for the season in quick succession.
Just as the pressure is cranking up, Marsch needs to see his players standing up to be counted. Phillips and Rodrigo are the two pillars of the council left standing to lighten the load on Ayling.
It feels like Phillips, 27 before the year is out, came of age long ago with his explosion of potential under Marcelo Bielsa and his subsequent ascension to the heart of the national team. Yet this is the kind of dogfight the city is looking to him for inspiration in.
Phillips and Rodrigo were two of the three faces Marsch added to the core leadership unit when he arrived. The American has repeatedly talked about giving Phillips a bigger role in the squad and teasing out that next phase of the midfielder’s career.
The time is now, it feels. Rodrigo, so instrumental with goals against Norwich City, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Watford, went off the boil in the last two. His experience and leadership is badly needed now too.
Mateusz Klich is a natural leader in these circumstances too. The Poland international is the oldest player in the squad and has been through all of the highs and lows of the Bielsa era. He has that affinity and connection with the fan base after 174 appearances.
United are going to be under the cosh at Champions League-chasing Arsenal on Sunday and these characters have to stand up and fill that void left by the likes of Dallas, Forshaw, Bamford and, possibly, Cooper.
