What has Jesse Marsch actually done at Leeds?
Genuine improvement or recency bias for the American?
Credit to multiple different articles on the Athletic for quotes and some visuals. Theathletic.com
A change of manager at Leeds, particularly replacing one as ingrained and legendary as Marcelo Bielsa, inevitably focused attention on how the team’s identity would change alongside the managers. It was easy to define a Bielsa side, for anyone watching a game or reading about him. The core traits of his tactics were extremely pronounced and incredibly specific to him. In March’s two previous jobs in European football, he has placed a heavy emphasis on counter-attacking, and looks to do so at Leeds, employing it as the method of going forward and creating chances.
Bielsa is rightly loved by most of the Ellend Road faithful, and Marsch has a long way to win them over like only Bielsa could. But I wanted to see if he has made tangible shifts in the performances and play of Leeds United since coming on.
March’s initial 4-2-2-2 system has shifted to something more like a 4-2-3-1, a switch that addressed concerns about a lack of width, and also how the mayhem of the club’s wins over Norwich City and Wolverhampton Wanderers deprived parts of those games of continuity and shape. But Southampton at home was a more settled contest and, as it went on, a pattern of transitional attacks was clear to see — a deliberate and rehearsed tactic.
March’s predecessor had a much larger focus on possession and believed even more in playing brutal and relentless counterattacking styles. Their former fitness coach said “We wanted to be a proactive team. The idea was to impose our football on the opponents, rather than the other way round. We worked a lot. If we weren’t able to make a difference from a technical or tactical point of view, we knew there might be a moment when our physical qualities could help us win a game. We had a demanding style. And it was important for us to be the fittest team in the league.”
There is no better visual than this to show how much of a physical edge Leeds had on the rest of the division in the 2020/21 season.
But fitness and tactics aren’t what matters if results don’t follow, and for Bielsa the results dried up over a horrid run of 6 straight winless matches in the middle of a critically important relegation battle.
Using xG for and xG against we can get a relative sense of how the team is performing overall. Bielsa’s teams this season had 1.25xG per game while Marsch’s teams have 1.5 - advantage Marsch. Bielsa’s teams had an average xG against of 1.97 while March’s teams averaged 1.13. This is almost a full goal less per game and is statistically significant in showing how much Marsch has solidified this defense. On average Bielsa’s teams were expected to lose by .72 goals per game while March’s teams were expected to win by .37. You can say what you will about the amount of games played or the difficulty of the opponents, but the fact is that Bielsa was averaging .92 points per game and Marsch is averaging 1.5. Those are real points - not expected.
Here is how Marsch describes the change in mentality:
“We have a term we call 100 to 70, It means that in certain moments, I want the players to slow down a little — not always physically but in their heads, too. Have a little bit more poise and control in how we construct the next play.”
I can’t say this more perfectly than the Leeds fan in the comment section of the Athletic article: “The ONLY thing that matters now is Jesse and the team having one more point on May 22 than the team in 18th place. The rest can be sorted out this summer, and the only real time to start evaluating what Jesse is doing systematically throughout the club top to bottom is next season. He was brought in to protect an investment---indeed, to salvage it---and that's his job right now. No more or less.”
One could argue he’s doing a bit more than that at the moment…