When questioned on BBC Sport’s The Football News Show in the aftermath of Leeds United’s survival in May, one supporter was asked whether Jesse Marsch was the reason for the club staying up. There was a knowing laugh, a slightly uncomfortable shimmy in the seat and then the predictable answer: “The jury’s still out on Jesse Marsch”.
Predictable because it seems to reflect entirely the majority opinion of the Leeds United fanbase. Rarely has a new coach been so tied down by the connection between their predecessor and the congregation and rarely has that made assessing his work so difficult. For a while, it did not matter that results improved. For supporters, something was missing that results – good or bad – could not overshadow. You are not Him.
That assessment also reflects something about Marsch’s career as a whole. There is something about the Red Bull development model, the post-match assessments, the failure at Leipzig and the necessary reminders that he’s not that young – 48 – that makes it all so difficult to surmise, like weighing a cloud. “The jury’s still out” might well become the epitaph on his managerial career.
Marsch roughly did a good job last season. He certainly achieved the remit and his 15 points from 12 league games was only eight fewer than Marcelo Bielsa had managed in 26. If things got a little hairy, a little frenetic, a little “Oh god he doesn’t know what he’s doing”, that only paints the eventual salvation in a more favourable light. Marsch rubbed some supporters up the wrong way with his brand of uber-positivity (most infamously after a 4-0 defeat to Manchester City), but then that’s his personality. Marcelo sat on a bucket; Jesse will look you in the eye and tell you to “create your fate”.
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But the sales of Raphinha and Kalvin Phillips made it a little more daunting and a little less on Leeds’ own terms. The best-run clubs outside the financial elite do not waste time pretending that their best assets are not for sale; selling is a sign of strength, not weakness. But the aim is to sell only one jewel every summer and certainly not your only two. There will be some regret that both Phillips and Raphinha only countenanced joining one club and therefore that Leeds were forced to compromise slightly on the fees they received. With two years left on his contract, £50m for a 25-year-old Raphinha is positively cut-price.
Which left Leeds in an interesting quandary. One of the indirect consequences of appointing – and cherishing – a dogmatic manager is that their replacement inevitably falls into one of two disparate camps. Either they are fleeting visitors, temporary placeholders between eras whose names you struggle to recall barely years later. Or they are deeply symbolic because so much faith, power and investment has to be placed in them.
See the list of Leeds’ replacements and place Marsch firmly – if slightly inadvertently – in that second camp. Three of their four most expensive signings this summer are: Brendan Aaronson, like Marsch an American and like Marsch developed under the Red Bull umbrella; Tyler Adams, like Marsch an American who played under him at New York Red Bulls and RB Leipzig; Rasmus Kristensen, signed by Marsch for Red Bull Salzburg. There was serious interest in Mohamed Camara, who played under Marsch for Red Bull Salzburg. There’s a type here.
Does that suggest a club-led recruitment strategy or a manager-led one? Is it a hybrid of the two: Leeds wanted Marsch because he fitted the profile and so his likely transfer targets fitted the profile too? Does any of that really matter if it works? Are Leeds United and Red Bull destined to intertwine with one another in football’s soap opera – rumoured £60m takeover, court case over Jean-Kevin Augustin, players and managers sharing history?
The obvious answer is that we will quickly find out, but it makes Leeds arguably the most fascinating Premier League club of all this summer. The club that desperately held onto one dogma has been forced into chasing a new one through circumstance. The team that secured its survival on the final day has lost its best two players and yet some optimism abounds. The manager who split the opinion of supporters has been allowed to recruit his teacher’s pets and yet is the favourite to lose his job first next season. Few can predict with any certainty how this works or how quickly it lasts; you can include most Leeds fans in that.
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