Jesse Marsch has learned an important lesson already at Leeds United to be more aggressive in his substitutions.
This is according to Phil Hay who was writing for The Athletic on the American’s start to life in Yorkshire having arrived following Marcelo Bielsa’s sacking.
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And Hay believes the victory over Norwich City saw Marsch learn having seen his negative substitution of replacing Rodrigo with Robin Koch almost backfire on him.
The Whites had a narrow 1-0 advantage at the time and almost ended up dropping points as Dean Smith’s side equalised in the latter stages of the game.
Joe Gelhardt saved Leeds’ blushes in the dying seconds of the game and Hay feels Marsch learned a valuable lesson from his first win at Elland Road.
“Where Rodrigo is concerned, there was a message for Marsch in what happened when he lost the Spain international to a thigh injury during that 2-1 win over Norwich,” Hay wrote for The Athletic.
“Marsch’s answer was to replace him with Robin Koch, a defensive move that had the effect of bringing Norwich into the game in the last half-hour. The situation called for a more aggressive substitution — a like-for-like swap in the attacking midfield area. ”
TIF Thoughts on Hay’s comments…
It seems Marsch has learned from his mistake as he made an attack-minded change having conceded against Norwich with the eventual game-winner, Gelhardt, being introduced for Mateusz Klich.
The following game for Marsch was a hard one to judge Marsch’s changes due to the nature of the clash against Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Leeds found themselves 2-0 down at half-time and suffered four injuries, however, having lost Patrick Bamford and Illan Meslier, we were impressed by Marsch’s decision not to bring Kalvin Phillips on.
With Leeds’ injury issues building up again, the last thing the Whites needed was to bring on Phillips and potentially risk him aggravating his injury issue which has kept him out for months.
In other news: ‘In loads of pain’ – Phil Hay reveals another Leeds injury scare on top of four replaced