Jesse Marsch was reluctant to play the blame game after his Leeds United side reached an unwanted milestone in the 3-0 defeat to Chelsea on Wednesday night.
Leeds became the first Premier League side to receive 100 cards in a single campaign, with Daniel James’ first-half red for a high tackle on Mateo Kovacic was followed by a yellow for Kalvin Phillips.
James’ sending off came after Mason Mount had already put Chelsea in front, with Christian Pulisic and Romelu Lukaku rounding off a comfortable night for the visiting side at Elland Road.
Leeds remain 18th in the Premier League table on goal difference, and with both Everton and Burnley above them boasting a game in hand, Marsch admitted their precarious position was a reason for their ill-discipline.
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Marsch admitted he had not seen a replay of James’ tackle on Kovacic when addressing the sending off afterwards.
The Leeds boss said he was “told it was a red”, adding James felt “terrible” for the challenge which could rule Kovavic out of Saturday’s FA Cup final.
“Dan said he didn’t mean to do it, he was just trying to be aggressive to win the ball and caught him in a little bit of a bad way. Dan feels terrible,” said Marsch.
“One thing for sure I’m not going to sit here and blame anyone. Our guys come everyday and they do everything they can, they stick together, they fight for each other, even on the third goal you see guys diving around the box doing everything they can to keep themselves in this league and in this match.
“I love these players, they fight to the end and we have to find ways to rewards ourselves and not go down in matches and stay even.”
Having slipped into the relegation zone after the weekend defeat to Arsenal, Leeds now face an uphill battle against the drop.
They host Brighton on Sunday before travelling to Brentford in their final game of the season on 22 May.
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“We want to learn from these moments so that we don’t repeat these situations and mistakes,” Marsch added.
“We have six points left, the first come on Sunday against Brighton and we have to do everything we can to recover, be mentally strong and be ready for the next challenge.
“Someone asked me if it was a psychological project, I said ‘it’s been like that since I’ve been here, really’. That’s where we are and we’ll recover and get ourselves ready.”
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