Jesse Marsch has hinted at a few changes when his Leeds United host Everton on Tuesday evening.
The Blues make the trip up to West Yorkshire just three days after Saturday’s 1-1 draw at the Brentford Community Stadium, with the Premier League schedule already becoming more compact ahead of the World Cup. Frank Lampard’s side are still looking for their first win of the season and face a tough task at a fervent Elland Road so soon after the weekend.
Marsch’s Whites also played on Saturday, losing 1-0 away to Brighton, and are equally short on recovery time as two of last season’s relegation candidates come together - albeit Leeds have enjoyed a far better start with seven points from their opening four games. And one thing Marsch arguably has over his opposite number is freedom to rotate, with the American coach hinting at ‘different players’ being involved on Tuesday.
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“Well, I think that they both are in good form,” Marsch said when asked about Mateusz Klich and Luis Sinisterra. “I thought both played very well against Barnsley.
"Klichy's clearly 100 per cent fit and I think that Luis is getting more and more fit. So I think that both will be candidates for the starting XI. And then we'll just try to evaluate physically where guys are at so that we'll see who's ready to repeat and go.
“It's a good thing that we didn't push too many guys midweek. We'll see how Liam Cooper is doing. Patrick Bamford will be really close for that match. So we should have options. There'll be different tactics involved. There'll be different players. There'll be different match plans.”
One of the final matches for Marsch’s predecessor saw Marcelo Bielsa lose 3-0 to a confident Everton side in February, and both sides retained their Premier League status at the expense of Burnley. And Marsch admitted that he expects the Blues to make Tuesday's clash another difficult one, identifying a solid defensive structure and clinical counter-attacking as the side’s main strengths.
“They got a good result against Brentford who I think is a really good team, and I think the way that they played at the end of last year, very pragmatic, but also very clear,” Marsch said of the Blues. “They defend very well, they don't give much away. They're good on the counter.
“So it sets up to be a dangerous game for us. But we have to make sure I think that we're very clear with again, exactly what they want out of the match. Just like we tried to be today and make sure that we don't play into the strategy of what they're trying to do and we play into the strategy of what we want to do.”
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