Clues have already been given on which way Jesse Marsch may go with his Leeds United selections this week. By the end of Sunday’s match with Fulham it will have been three matches in eight days for the Whites and Marsch knows he needs to shuffle his deck.
Mercifully, the squad is in a good place with injuries based on Marsch’s most recent comments. The head coach will speak again on Wednesday, but Leo Hjelde, Adam Forshaw, Archie Gray and Stuart Dallas are the only players currently with a question mark hanging over them.
That means the American has options across the pitch as and when he needs to manage minutes. Left-back is one such department, where Pascal Struijk has performed brilliantly out of position.
Junior Firpo came out of the summer as the club’s only senior, natural left-back, but injury has consistently got in the way of his pitch time. The 26-year-old’s one appearance came from the bench against Aston Villa with the team down to 10 men.
At last, after another niggle, he is fit once more and will have designs on getting the starts he was expecting as the club’s number one at left-back. Struijk is playing too well for that switch to come any time soon, but Marsch has conceded Firpo will get on the pitch this week.
Speaking last week, Marsch said: “Right now, Pascal is playing at such a high level we will start with Pascal on the weekend, but we need to get Junior fully fit and healthy. He trained all week this week, he looks really good.
“He's still a really important piece for us as things go forward. We have a three-game week coming up, so I anticipate he will be ready to go and we will definitely need minutes from him and we'll evaluate exactly what we do for each match, but he's ready.”
Even if it’s not from the start, Firpo, who again went unused on Sunday, is expected to play a part in the matches Leeds need to take points from against Leicester City and Fulham.
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