Changes are coming for Leeds United and Jesse Marsch has laid the gauntlet down for his fringe options to pick up where Sunday’s heroes left off. The head coach has the ability to switch out his entire line-up for Barnsley’s visit and there are expectations the stand-ins deliver the same tactical clarity as was shown in the Chelsea win.
Adam Forshaw, Liam Cooper, Crysencio Summerville, Kristoffer Klaesson, Luis Sinisterra, Joe Gelhardt, Leo Hjelde, Cody Drameh, Sam Greenwood and Mateusz Klich all look well-placed for starts at Elland Road on Wednesday night. While they will be keen for minutes, Marsch wants to see a continuation of the weekend breakthrough everyone delivered.
“We’ve got Barnsley and we’ll probably rotate a few guys,” he said. “We need to see performances now from the entire squad that represent clarity and intelligence so we can really move everything along in the direction we want to go with every single player.”
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Marc Roca and Daniel James have played the fewest minutes of those who started the last Premier League game, but that aforementioned decet is badly in need of first-team exposure to keep the rust at bay. Cooper has not played any kind of football since early June with Scotland and while he was not fit enough for Chelsea, Marsch was bold on how good the captain was looking in training.
If Klaesson is rated as highly as Leeds say, this seems like the kind of senior exposure he needs to have, while Drameh deserves this chance to impress after resolving to stay put in this transfer window. The distribution of centre-backs and left-back seems like the trickiest debate for Marsch.
Hjelde seems the best bet if Struijk is to be rested, but that might mean Jeremiah Mullen or one of Robin Koch and Diego Llorente partners Cooper. Forshaw and Greenwood seem a good bet in the double-pivot, while Sinisterra, Summerville and Klich can line up behind Gelhardt in a front four.
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