I wanted Bielsa to leave on a high
JESSE HAILS OLD BOSS
JESSE MARSCH wanted Leeds to stick with Marcelo Bielsa when they first offered him the chance to succeed the Argentinian.
Leeds’ director of football
Victor Orta approached the American last week and initially he felt
Bielsa should be allowed to see out his contract before he replaced him in the summer. Leeds sank to their fourth successive defeat in their 4-0 defeat by Tottenham in their next game to slide deeper into relegation trouble and Marsch understands why they had to act by hiring him as their new manager.
“I didn’t want Marcelo to have to go out like this – I wanted to see him continue and finish his legacy and keep the team up,” said Marsch. “I know what it’s like, I just left a team midway through a season, it’s not a good feeling. I wanted Marcelo to finish on a high and the club to finish on a high with him.
“I wanted to make that argument with Victor when he called me, but I could see that the group was suffering. And so I had to wrap my mind around doing it now and my focus is not on the Championship, it’s on finding ways that we will be in the Premier League.”
Leeds brought forward their plan to appoint Marsch because they are so worried about going down and they will keep faith with him if they are relegated.
Marsch knows Leeds chose him because he is similar in style to Bielsa, but he has vowed to be his own man. He has ditched Bielsa’s man-forman marking and instead will press in smaller groups. And he has also adopted zonal marking having spent much of this week working on set-pieces to improve Leeds’ leaky defence.
Bielsa’s ‘murderball’ training sessions are no more and Marsch will lessen the players’ workload because he feels some were injured because they played with niggles.
“Marcelo changed the mentality of the club and the team, helped to create a winning mentality here and I want to understand the things he did well and how to stay true to some of those things,” added Marsch. “But it’s more important for me to be me and provide what this team needs to continue to get better and grow.
“I know there are factions of people who may not accept me so well because of their love for Marcelo. I just want the team to show how good they are and, that as good as Marcelo is and was, the team were, too.”
I wanted him to finish his legacy and keep them up