Here are your Leeds United evening headlines on Thursday, March 10.
Orta provides Sevilla with West Ham help
Leeds United are in action against Aston Villa tonight, but elsewhere this evening, a number of teams are in action in both the Europa League and the Conference League.
One of the marquee ties sees West Ham face Sevilla away from home. The Spanish side are the former employers of Victor Orta and they spoke to him for their official website about what to expect from the Hammers.
Leeds got the better of them at the London Stadium in their last Premier League victory and the director of football gave his advice.
“They [West Ham] have a very good team, not to be scared of”, said Orta. “I think that at the back I see them as a slow team, with the two tall, classic central defenders.
“At the back they seem accessible to me, but sometimes the midfielders drop back and that makes them more complicated.
“If you press up the pitch it is difficult for them to build, but as they steal [the ball] from you, they create superiority and many problems for you. If you press up high it’s hard for them to build, but if they reclaim [the ball] from you, they become dominant and create a lot of problems.
“They like to concede few goals. They have an interesting goalkeeper, the classic [Lukasz] Fabianski. This sounds like a cliche, but they are very dangerous from set pieces. You have to be careful with conceding corners and avoidable fouls because it gives them life. You have to be smart because they usually take advantage of that.”
Leeds fans call for trio of changes against Aston Villa
Jesse Marsch takes charge of his first game at Elland Road later this evening against Aston Villa.
He will have learned plenty about his new team at the weekend in the narrow defeat to Leicester and will be looking for another strong performance.
He has confirmed that Patrick Bamford will play a part against Steven Gerrard’s side but admitted he will not be selected in the starting XI while Diego Llorente will be back in the squad.
In our team selector widget where we asked for the teams you would pick, the latter was included alongside Pascal Struijk in the heart of the defence.
There were also places for Joe Gelhardt and Adam Forshaw in the most popular XI after neither were chosen from the start at King Power Stadium.
David Seaman impressed by Marsch’s work so far
As mentioned, there was vast improvement on show against the Foxes on Saturday and it has left fans confident of survival under Marsch.
One of the club’s most well-known fans, David Seaman, is no different and he was impressed by what he saw in the East Midlands.
Speaking on his very own Seaman Says podcast, he said: "They were a lot better at the weekend. Stronger defensively and creating chances – they always create chances but they were unlucky to lose.”
The former England goalkeeper also commented on Everton following their heavy defeat against Tottenham: "Everton have more talent than Leeds. They are quality players and they’re not doing it.
"There’s a lot of stuff going wrong and a lot of quality players not putting a shift in. They look a bit like Man United in that they’re disjointed. You look and think ‘that’s a good team’ and they don’t do it.
"I’m glad we’re talking about Everton and we’re not talking about Leeds."
Read more here.
