Changes in personnel and system for Leeds United will be virtually essential for the visit of Brighton & Hove Albion and Jesse Marsch’s comments suggest three names are in contention. Daniel James’s suspension and the withdrawals of Jack Harrison and Raphinha will prompt changes for the head coach.
While the wide and attacking areas are decimated by suspended and injured options, Marsch has an abundance of available names in his defensive ranks. Junior Firpo, Robin Koch, Liam Cooper, Diego Llorente, Pascal Struijk, Leo Hjelde, Charlie Cresswell and Jamie Shackleton can all be played across a back four or five.
Marsch will confirm his squad situation on Friday afternoon, but James is certainly missing from Wednesday’s line-up and Harrison seemed a bigger doubt than Raphinha. Firpo and Mateusz Klich were two of the names who came off the bench and seem well placed to be recalled against Brighton.
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Lewis Bate did not set the world alight in very difficult circumstances on a debut at 19, but Marsch’s comments would suggest he may have done enough to keep his place. He said: “We do have some options in the back right now and a lot of those guys are playing at a high level.
“Junior was very good, Lewis Bate did a good job and Klich, when he came in, did a good job. In general, if you go down to the [team’s] performances, it’s not they’ve been great, but it hasn’t been horrible.
“It’s just the level of the opponents and playing with a man down for 60 minutes in two matches limits your ability to win the game.”
