Jesse Marsch couldn’t be happier with the way Wilfried Gnonto continues to settle into his Leeds United line-up. Gnonto only made his debut for the Whites in October, in the win over Liverpool at Anfield, but he has already established himself as one of the brightest talents in the squad and his career is only moving in one direction.
The forward bagged his first goal last time out in the Premier League, finishing with aplomb against West Ham United after getting himself on the end the move he started at Elland Road. That was the 19-year-old’s fourth league start for the club and given his current form, he won’t be relinquishing his spot in United’s XI any time soon.
Marsch has seen and worked with a host of young talent throughout his coaching career, with Erling Haaland the being most prominent. Therefore, he knows what extraordinary potential looks like and that’s certainly what Gnonto seems to possess.
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“I think what you see is a combination of confidence and belief, that quality, that's usually, the young players that have big potential, what you'd like to see,” Marsch said. “He's been a lot of fun to work with.
“He takes on information really well, he has flexibility to the way we use them. He had certain moments (against West Ham United) where I thought he did really well, certain moments where he is understanding what that role is and he can continue to grow.
“But you see confidence in him right now, I think it's partly about a run of games that he's had and then adapting to the league and adapting to what we are asking of him. So that part's been good and if we can get Cree (Summerville) fully fit and sharp, we have him, Luis (Sinisterra) then we have Brenden (Aaronson) and Jack (Harrison) and then we start to build, and then obviously with our strikers, a real compliment of attacking players that can be a lot of fun to work with.”
While Gnonto has been one of the first names on Marsch’s teamsheet since the World Cup break, the head coach has looked to rotate on regular basis in attacking areas to ease the likes of Summerville and Harrison back up to match fitness. Harrison started against Newcastle and emerged off the bench against the Hammers, making a difference and assisting the equalising goal in the latter.
His workload is still being managed but the head coach has confidence that he can have a big say on Leeds’ campaign moving forward.
“Yeah, he's still physically not at 100% so playing him 90 minutes and starting both games from the start, we just made the decision to try to protect him a little bit,” Marsch said before last weekend’s FA Cup tie at Cardiff. “But I think Jack’s in a really good place.
“I think he performed well against Newcastle and he performed really well when he came on into the match (versus West Ham). Jack is a big part of what we're doing here and we need to just get him fully fit so that we can push him back to 100% every way.”
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