Anxiety is a part of the problems Leeds United are suffering on the pitch right now, according to head coach Jesse Marsch. After a run of eight matches without a win, confidence in the camp is brittle and the American is seeing that spill into their desperation to make this run stop.
One of the tenets of the difficulty Leeds had down last season’s home stretch, Marsch felt, was tension and pressure in the group as they felt the slide into the Premier League’s bottom three. The former RB Leipzig man felt those emotions were clouding judgement and making it harder to carry out his tactical plans.
Speaking after Sunday’s 3-2 loss, Marsch acknowledged anxiety was again creeping into the decisions his players were taking on the field. The head coach can see how that pressure to rush their patterns of play then exposes them in transition to counters from the opposition.
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“Part of it is we're so anxious to play forward so quickly, the game starts to open up and it's tough for us to control the opponent in those transition moments because the game is so open,” he said. “We don't want it to look like that all the time.
“We want to be able to still put the opponent back in their half and then start to find ways to pin them back a little bit more and then work on some of our possession and some of our interchanges so we can be effective in the last third.
“Then we can also be more effective in making sure they don't get out in transition. Sometimes we're anxious to find the goal, to make the play and then the game opens up and then it gets more difficult.”
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