The missing line-up
It’s a sad indictment of Leeds United’s performance and the general apathy around friendlies that Wednesday’s biggest headline revolved around absent players. There was an entirely different starting line-up of senior faces missing from the matchday squad.
Stuart Dallas and Luis Sinisterra are well-known as long-term injury cases, but the other nine were all supposed to be in and around the playing squad by the time the Premier League returned. They have another week to recover, but many of them are badly lacking in minutes before arguably the world’s best club side arrives in town.
Post-match, Rene Maric remained quietly confident about most of them being in contention for the City match after some illness had been going around the squad. Illan Meslier was named as one he was hopeful about, despite that troublesome bout of glandular fever.
READ MORE: Leeds United map out situation for 11 absentees in Monaco loss and Meslier's Man City hope
Liam Cooper and Jack Harrison were at Elland Road 24 hours earlier to watch the open training session without getting involved. Patrick Bamford’s groin operation was supposed to see him back training within a fortnight, but he's yet to be seen near a game.
Crysencio Summerville took what Jesse Marsch called a bang on the ankle in Elche, but is still yet to be involved again. Rodrigo had some tightness they did not want to risk, while Mateusz Klich was also absent.
Marsch will face the media again on Thursday afternoon when he will hopefully put some dates to these names because, based on how the previous few years have gone, it’s easy for the supporters to assume the worst when it comes to medical issues.
Injuries have been a nagging problem constantly biting away in the background and the lack of strength in depth on the bench is only adding fuel to the fire for January reinforcements.
Ten minutes of madness
This match was lost in the haze of a 10-minute collapse that saw the visitors rack up three goals with painful ease. All three saw familiar failings come to the boil again.
The second and fourth strikes were effectively walked into the net. Defenders were sucked into the ball like magnets, only to leave opposition attackers with an acreage to exploit.
Gelson Martins’s back-post walk-in was a carbon copy of the concessions seen time after time. The opposition only has to switch the ball from side to side with a degree of speed to see an attacker left unmarked at the back stick.
Ismail Jakobs was a free man to rifle home from close range in the second phase of a set-piece after Luke Ayling was beaten in the air to a corner. It’s all adding to the body of work Marsch must be constantly working on.
It was not a 10-minute spell which built confidence before six-yard monsters like Erling Haaland arrive. The thing is, the first half had been decent.
A system with room to grow
That first half was decent and at 1-1 it felt like Marsch’s experiment with the 4-3-3 was paying off. It was less noticeable in the Real Sociedad win, but against Monaco, it was clear how much more protection Rasmus Kristensen had and how much joy Sam Greenwood could have as an eight attacking from deeper.
How much of this is down to these matches being dead rubbers remains to be seen. It could well be back to the 4-2-3-1 when the real stuff comes back, but in a season where, generally, Leeds have not got the results they want, switching the formation may not be a bad thing.
Having three central midfielders across the middle of the park simply covers more ground, more opposition attackers and provides a more solid base from which to attack and defend. In the 4-2-3-1, with four players committed to the high press of the opposition backline, Leeds were finding themselves bypassed and exposed.
With fewer players committed to that high line, yes, it may prove less effective in flustering defenders, but it does give them an extra body in that second phase to press and win the ball back in transition.
With Tyler Adams back for the Newcastle United game, Marc Roca, Adam Forshaw, Greenwood and Darko Gyabi catching Marsch’s eye, there are the players there to pull it off too.
Ride the Gnonto wave
There is little doubt Wilfried Gnonto is the most exciting attacker playing for Leeds at the moment. This feels like the 19-year-old’s moment and Marsch needs to exploit that.
He has not been perfect, but no teenage footballer is, yet as Wednesday’s match wore on he became more and more of a threat. Gnonto’s dribbling, close control, vision, passing, balance and agility have been a nightmare for defenders.
Across what have been quite drab friendlies, Gnonto’s the player who gets bums off seats and excites the crowd. The winning of the penalty was the ideal way to close out a 15-minute spell in which he terrorised Monaco’s tiring defence.
With question marks hanging over both Jack Harrison and Crysencio Summerville ahead of next week, Gnonto has to take one of those slots in the forward positions for Marsch.
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