Leeds look so lightweight
...so why did Marsch leave his new £35m star on the bench?
JESSE MARSCH said last week that he now has an ‘arsenal of weapons’. But just when he needed them to cause mass destruction, they fired blanks here at Elland Road. The Leeds boss has been purring about his array of attacking talent since the club-record signing of French forward Georginio Rutter from Hoffenheim, with Rodrigo and Willy Gnonto bang in form and Patrick Bamford and Luis Sinisterra also back fit.
Yet four of those forwards failed to breach Brentford’s backline yesterday, and new boy Rutter was left shivering under a blanket on the bench. It means Leeds have gone six Premier League games without a win, a damaging run which dates back to November 5 and leaves them just a point above the relegation zone.
As is his way, manager Marsch was keen to talk up the positives of a point gained rather than two dropped. He insists his side are close to becoming a ‘good team’ and a run of results is just around the corner. But fans will only believe that when they see it, especially given their next four Premier League fixtures includes two games against Manchester United, as well as visits to Nottingham Forest and Everton.
The frustration right now is that they cannot produce a complete performance. When their attack fires, as it did in their FA Cup win over Cardiff in midweek when they scored five goals, they still leak goals at the back.
Yet when their defence holds firm, as it did yesterday thanks to the new centre back pairing of Max Wober and Robin Koch, Leeds are unable to break the deadlock themselves. This was their fourth clean sheet of the season but three of those have been goalless draws.
The hope is that Rutter can come into the team and light up the second half of the season. With a hefty price tag of £35.5million, that is the least Leeds will want from their new boy.
The 20-year-old was expected to make his debut against Brentford from the bench but Marsch opted to ‘wait one more week to unleash him’.
Instead, he was left hoping for more magic from Gnonto after his wonder-goal volley on Wednesday. Yet while the in-form Italian did come closest to finding the net deep into the second half, Bees goalkeeper David Raya kept out his effort at his near post.
‘ The group is disappointed because they really felt they played well and they wanted to be rewarded with the points,’ said Marsch. ‘But I have been focusing on the performances and it’s very clear we are moving in the right direction. We were very stable defensively, there was a strong performance from a lot of individuals, so it was a big positive.
‘ The group is coming together. There is momentum. I know it doesn’t feel like that necessarily because we have not had a bunch of wins in a row, but that’s where we are at. ‘When I look all of our men in the eye, they know it’s coming together. They know we are getting better and know we are going to be a good team.’ Brentford are already a good team, even if they did not look it at times at Elland Road, where they did not register a single shot on target. But this draw extended their unbeaten run in the Premier League to eight games. And unlike Leeds, when you are as high as eighth in the table, you can afford a few off days.
‘ It was a really solid away performance,’ said Bees manager Thomas Frank. ‘ We defended very well. We gave almost nothing away.
‘I’m always striving to be even better. But this is a very difficult place to play and Leeds gave everything. It was a fantastic battle where the two teams cancelled each other out.’
This fixture had promised excitement given the last two clashes between the sides. On the final day of last season, Jack Harrison scored in stoppage time to seal a 2-1 win for Leeds which kept them up. Then last September, Ivan Toney scored a hat-trick in an eventual 5-2 victory for Brentford. But there was no such drama yesterday.
In the first half, Brentford were largely restricted to efforts from range, with Mathias Jensen seeing one strike from outside the box deflected over. And when they did get in behind, they chose the wrong option, as Rico Henry was found in space but tried to cut back to Toney instead of shooting and Leeds defender Koch was first to the ball.
It was largely the same for the hosts in the opening period but they piled the pressure on after the break. Brenden Aaronson curled a shot at Raya from the edge of the box, before Rodrigo tested the Bees goalkeeper, who dived down to his left to keep out the Spaniard’s 20-yard strike.
Gnonto then had the clearest chance of them all, as Rodrigo found him to the right of goal but Raya did well to keep out his close-range effort.
Marsch waited until the 69th minute before introducing one of his other forwards from bench, with Sinisterra the first to get the nod. Bamford, fresh from his midweek brace against Cardiff, was then brought on 11 minutes from time.
But those substitutes could not alter the outcome, leaving a familiar feeling of frustration around Elland Road at full time.