Earlier today, Jesse Marsch held his first press conference since taking over from Marcelo Bielsa at Leeds.
The American spoke very well, and gave an interesting answer when quizzed on how he plans to tighten Leeds up at the back.
What’s the story?
Well, it’s no secret that Leeds are pretty leaky in defence.
In fact, they’ve conceded more goals than any other Premier League side this season, having shipped 60 goals in just 26 games.
That works out at an average of over two goals a game, which, in all honesty, is terrible.
When asked how he plans to fix this issue, Marsch said: “I have a million things on my mind that I want to implement, but what’s important to me is to understand how to make the simple things the clearest and then add complexity as we go on and get that balance right.”
In our view, this is a very sensible approach.
It is important for the Leeds players to know their roles, and to not be overloaded with information.
Marsch seems to be all too aware of that, and his response to the question was certainly an encouraging one, to say the least.
Jesse Marsch must build from the back at Leeds
In our view, Marsch needs to focus on making Leeds harder to score against before he focuses on anything else.
As things stand, with the average of over two concessions per game in mind, Leeds will have to score plenty of goals, which isn’t a sustainable approach.
There would be no point in Marsch getting his team to score two goals every week if they go on to concede three and lose, for example.
Some clean sheets are needed before anything else, which should then provide the platform for Leeds to attack with confidence, safe in the knowledge that there are solid foundations at the back.
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