Robin Koch has been speaking on BBC Radio Leeds about the major change that Jesse Marsch has made at Leeds United.
Under former manager, Marcelo Bielsa, Leeds United famously adopted a man-marking system across the pitch so every player knew what their role was and this was very unique for the Premier League and English football.
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Now though, with Jesse Marsch at the helm, it appears that he’s scrapped Bielsa’s ideology and got rid of the man-marking system which was seemingly dragging Leeds United into the Championship having won once in Bielsa’s last seven games in charge.
Koch, who has started every game under Marsch has spoken about how removing the man-marking is the biggest change under Marsch.
(0:00) “I think the biggest difference is that we are no longer man-marking. So in the past, we did a lot of running with man v man and creating all the time to the opponent and now we are more like a team. Sometimes we go with three-man aggressive to the ball and I think this is the biggest difference.”
TIF Thoughts on Marsch scrapping the man-marking system…
It was quite a big change for Marsch to make so quickly into his time at Elland road, especially when he would have known that the players were so used to this man-marking way of playing having done so ever since Bielsa arrived.
However, with Marsch picking up a crucial three points last week against Norwich City, as well as being competitive in their 1-0 defeat against Leicester City, perhaps a shift away from what the players were used to was very much needed to get them away from the relegation zone.
It’s also known that set-pieces were a huge issue for Marcelo Bielsa and Leeds as they conceded 13 of their 60 goals conceded in the Premier League as of post-Spurs game from dead-ball situations.
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