Jesse Marsch is Victor Orta’s biggest gamble yet at Leeds – there is so much riding on Marcelo Bielsa’s successor

Ask around in the world of cutting edge analytics and one word continually crops up about Leeds United’s director of football Victor Orta: visionary.

“He is a brilliant guy,” says Jelle Leenders, the Marketing Manager at Sci Sports, a Dutch data firm that specialises in recruitment insights and counts Leeds as a prominent client.

“Victor’s a visionary, he thinks a few steps ahead and is open to adopting innovation and thinking about things differently.

“A lot of clubs opt in on data now but you have these first adopters who are a few steps further on and he is one of those.”

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Over five years in which the club has been transformed, Orta – a data zealot who has profiles for more than 2,000 players in every position from first team to academy at his fingertips – has been at the centre of a drive to modernise Leeds.

Now, in the wake of the decision to stand Marcelo Bielsa down from his Elland Road mission, he finds himself instead at the centre of a brewing storm.

Make no mistake: Leeds have appointed Jesse Marsch with the club at a crossroads. The path of least resistance, despite flat-lining form of late, would have been to stick with Bielsa – whose popularity endured despite a string of heavy defeats that sent Leeds sinking towards the relegation zone.

But Orta was among those who believed a change was necessary to recalibrate a club in danger of drifting out of the Premier League, with all the ramifications for future ownership and ability to compete with the elite.

Orta likes to walk alongside the average fan and enjoys mixing with Leeds supporters. He’ll be acutely aware of Bielsa’s impregnable reputation and will know he is now on dangerous ground. His legacy at Leeds depends on getting this one right.

Given that Orta is the man who has advocated most for Marsch – one of 40 coaches monitored and studied as possible successors to Bielsa – it is he who is under the greatest scrutiny.

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So is Orta’s data-driven approach about to crash against the cold, hard reality of life in the glare of the Elland Road spotlight? Or will the man who is “one step ahead” manage to deliver his greatest success yet?

“It’s a big, big risk,” one executive who specialises in managerial hirings told i. “But every managerial appointment is. What gives me hope is that they clearly have a vision and they’ve appointed the person who fits that rather than the biggest name out there. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

Before we even begin talking about being a long-term fix, an immediate uplift is required to prevent a ruinous relegation which would put Orta, among others, in the line of fire.

From the outside, Marsch’s profile tallies with the short-term mission at Leeds to have a playing style unique enough to cause teams with greater resources problems. He will need to squeeze an extra few percent out of the players he has and Orta’s belief is that his coaching credentials are gold plated.

Crucially, he also comes with a reputation for greater flexibility than Bielsa, whose commitment to his ideals appeared to be a hindrance in this draining campaign.

But the intangible factor is whether Marsch has the personality and charisma to ride the Elland Road tiger like Bielsa did. His predecessor was no tub thumper, but he carried Leeds with him. He represented everything the club’s supporters wanted Leeds to be: from his tireless work ethic to his fierce sense of fair play.

Ironically Orta’s big gamble is that he has acted swiftly enough to both protect Bielsa’s legacy and Leeds’ Premier League status.

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