How much worse can it get?
Leeds United are into the Premier League’s relegation zone by the end of October and they have equalled the longest winless run of last season, a campaign which required the stars to align on a final-day escape act. It does not look like it’s about to improve either.
The Chelsea win feels like last season already, while the brief respite of an undeserved loss to the league leaders has been quickly forgotten in the blaze of pain caused by Leicester City and Fulham. Neither Bernd Leno nor Danny Ward were tested anywhere near enough in the last two matches and after six changes yesterday, we are left looking for ways this can be improved by Jesse Marsch.
The team is finding it impossible to score goals and increasingly easy to concede them. The lack of basic concentration through the three set-pieces which yielded Fulham’s goals at Elland Road was alarming.
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Confidence is brittle. Minds are wandering. Players are overthinking basic tasks and Marsch looks fresh out of ideas for how this trend changes. The message on Friday morning remained one of unity from the top to the bottom of the club behind Marsch.
As of last night, that message remained the same with three league matches to go until the World Cup break. A 3-2 home defeat to newly-promoted Fulham, on the back of seven previous matches without a victory, has to be reason enough for the board to consider changing their minds.
The Whites are nosediving and, unfortunately, in football, it has always been far easier to remove a head coach than players or a boardroom en masse, depending on where you point the finger of blame. The fixture list was kind to Leeds from the start of the season and yet still they sit 18th.
The fans have made their voices clear
Fan power is everything in football, especially at a club as vociferously supported as Leeds. If Thursday’s contingent of die-hard away fans proved the initial barometer for discontent, the reaction to going one, then two goals behind on Sunday sent a clear message to the directors’ box.
The home fans were right behind the team from the first whistle and brought the right level of supportive noise for the occasion. It was holding back the general malaise though, which simmered beneath the surface.
Once Leeds lost their lead and then failed to pin Fulham back at 1-1, the visitors’ goals felt inevitable and anger quickly came to the boil. Gestures were made in the direction of the directors’ box and towards Marsch too.
The chants were the most damning indictment of current affairs, however. “You’re getting sacked in the morning” came from the Norman Hunter Stand, but “sack the board” would follow from there and other stands too.
It is very hard for a head coach to turn things around when the fan base is so fed up with what it is watching. After 24 matches under Marsch, there are only two which have delivered a sustained, quality performance.
Player decisions to make
Six changes at 1pm yesterday smacked of a head coach who neither knew his best team nor how to find the winning formula he needed. In fact, it was Thursday’s initial splurge which made the rod for Marsch’s own back.
Three of the switches were correcting the wrongs of Leicester and one was enforced by injury, which left the two calls with Luke Ayling and Rodrigo as the jarring shouts. Rasmus Kristensen has improved of late, while Patrick Bamford was responsible for the only good half of attacking football the club has delivered in recent weeks.
If Marsch is in charge for the trip to Anfield on Saturday, he is going to need to decide what his best team is and stop changing the side. Crysencio Summerville and Joe Gelhardt even threw their hats into the ring with a late combination for the consolation goal.
The former finally demonstrated some of the electric dribbling we have seen in the under-21s, while the latter showed some of his own majestic ball-carrying, which has been lacking this season. Gelhardt was so frequently the option Leeds would look to from the bench and over time he showed he had the magic to lift Leeds out of ruts.
In the absence of any concerted form from Bamford or Rodrigo, perhaps Marsch may be tempted by Gelhardt once more. The trouble is, Liverpool away is hardly the fixture for chucking experience in the bin.
Adams is missed
The insult to injury was ironically added before the match had even started on Sunday. Tyler Adams, present and correct inside Elland Road, was surprisingly absent from the teamsheet.
It is understood to be a minor muscle injury and Leeds will hope it is as insignificant as they believe because they need arguably their player of the season so far to be starting at Anfield. Sam Greenwood could not bring the same bite or influence of last term’s final game to Sunday’s battle.
How Marsch survives
Despite slipping into the bottom three and matching last season’s longest winless run with sporadic patches of quality football to cling onto, there was little suggestion Leeds would be minded to sack Marsch on Sunday night. There are various theories why that might be.
The Arsenal performance remains fresh in some memories and stands as proof this team was able to play well under Marsch just eight days ago. There is also the school of thought which follows the very example the Gunners set by standing with Mikel Arteta through his own horrendous run of form.
While it may be increasingly commonplace in football, Andrea Radrizzani may not want to follow the modern trend of sacking managers after five minutes in their post. Marsch has already lasted longer than Paul Heckingbottom under the Italian, so a precedent has been set.
That Arteta theory ties into Victor Orta’s obvious faith in Marsch too. If the director of football really did scout the American for several years and, informally, suss him out in conversation as the natural successor to Marcelo Bielsa, then he has to stand by that view.
Inevitably, conversations about Marsch’s future have been had in the boardroom and if Orta has the courage of his convictions, he will be one of the voices backing the head coach and believing in the process, believing in what he saw when he identified him all those years ago. The credit Radrizzani and the board place on Orta’s opinion will directly dictate how long they feel they can and should give Marsch.
There is also the small matter of the fixture list and the nature of this odd, interrupted campaign. At the start of the season, every club would have looked at the World Cup break as an obvious time to hit the reset button if they felt they needed to.
Leeds have a fraction more than six weeks between their Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City clashes. That’s effectively another pre-season in which to draft a new head coach and give them the time to get across their ideas before their debut match.
If that is an opportunity United are minded to take, and there is no suggestion they currently are, why would they persist with Marsch and drag out the inevitable? Liverpool, Bournemouth and Tottenham stand between United and the World Cup.
That’s not a set of matches which screams points. Perhaps the top brass would see Marsch take those final three chances to prove he can turn this around, rather than quickly draft in an unprepared replacement who takes a couple of hammerings before they have even got their feet under the table.
Or Leeds do genuinely believe Marsch is their man for the short, medium and long-term future. Time will tell in the days and weeks ahead.
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