The Athletic’s Phil Hay has criticised Leeds United manager Jesse Marsch following his lack of effective changes in the Whites’ defeat at the weekend.
Hay was speaking on The Phil Hay Show ahead of this weekend’s clash as they welcome the league leaders to Elland Road.
Leeds got off to the best possible start at Crystal Palace after Pascal Struijk put Marsch’s side a goal up within 10 minutes, but strikes from Odsonne Édouard and Eberechi Eze turned the game on its head for the Eagles.
The American manager brought Patrick Bamford off for Crysencio Summerville with just under 30 minutes of the game remaining, whilst Brenden Aaronson was swapped for Mateusz Klich with just over 15 minutes to go. However, the Whites were unable to prevent Patrick Vieira’s side from taking all three points.
Reviewing the performance, Hay was not impressed with the substitutions Marsch made in the game.
He said: “I didn’t feel yesterday that the changes did anything positive – the substitutions in the second half.
“I wasn’t convinced that it would have been a bad idea to have Joe Gelhardt on earlier; I think Bamford’s race was run. I did think he was dropping out of the game and a change needed to be made there.
“But I didn’t think Summerville was hugely effective when he came on.
“I thought Aaronson coming off the pitch took out a player who is probably as likely as anybody else, barring Jack Harrison, to create in the final third.
“And that is probably where Marsch is suffering slightly at the moment – the game management.”
TIF Thoughts on Hay’s comments…
We believe that the decision to substitute Aaronson was a questionable decision from Marsch, with the United States international getting plenty of joy against Palace’s defence – playing a significant role in the build-up to the first goal.
Whilst we don’t think that the former RB Leipzig manager’s decisions cost the side a point in the fixture, we don’t believe that they did anything to help the cause of the West Yorkshire side.
Therefore, we think that Marsch will need to study his potential substitutions in the future and work out how he can make more decisive and effective changes to positively impact games for Leeds.