Jesse Marsch

[BlackHillsPaul]

My best pal is a devoted Swans fan and he assured me Bradley was totally clueless. I mean they had some progressive managers before him like Rodgers & Martinez so he had a lot to live up to. Interestingly he had a reasonable start but it descended into total and utter nonsense. Not sure it was a case of not being open to him, he was just useless. My mate is pretty knowledgeable and very honest & fair so I totally trust his judgement. Marsch was his 2nd in command at the WC I think? Anyway I would give him a chance but if we go down he won’t survive for long in the Championship. I’m certain of that.

My own opinion of Bradley is that he is a good Manager with good football ideas. But his manner of speech and his mannerisms in general make it almost impossible for most people to take him seriously. Like I said, he's a weird dude!! It's difficult for Americans to figure him out. He was NOT popular among USA Supporters when he was our National Team Manager. But he has been a winner everywhere but Swansea.

It's true that Bradley has been a mentor of Marsch. Jesse played for him at Chicago Fire. And was an assistant under him with the National Team. But Jesse is also very different from Bradley. Completely different personality. He is much more open and articulate. Which I see earned him some ridicule this week...

[BlackHillsPaul]

Hey Paul, i've just started watching the first episode of Ted Lasso, i fink it gonna be fun.

" Do you believe in Ghosts ? "...." The question is, do the ghosts believe in themselves" Luv it.

It's a LOT of fun! I'll admit to hating the concept BEFORE I first watched the show. I thought ffs this is feeding into every negative stereotype the Brits have of us. But Ted Lasso has a way of winning people over. And this show ain't about football....

[Kennyb41]

Please stick around Paul, you're gonna be better off conversing with the likes of Weasel who's articulate and knows his stuff and puts it in words i never could, he reads my mind sometimes and gets the main point across much better than me, i'm too frustrated at our loss of who i consider the greatest i've ever seen and i'm so angry at what we have done to ourselves. You'll probably have noticed by now that i'm pretty blunt, i have views on Yanks getting involved in Football and they're not good ( i wrote Yanks then because i was too lazy to write Americans, and you can take that 'Yanks' your version or mine btw )
But i've always wondered when our league will come crashing back down to earth since Sky sold it to the world and what might cause that crash, around the globe it is by far the most popular especially Asia, my own conclusion is that Americans aren't arriving here for the love of the game they've usually always ridiculed but for the obvious money that's around, and i smell a rat, i wondered how they might fck it up and thought ' nah they can't it's too massive now' but this super league shenanigans made me think again and the involvement of the Glaziers stripping Man U as much as i love it is disgusting, i'm sure i read somewhere at the beginning that they had debt coming out of their eyeballs over there and persuaded the American banks to subsidise the purchase of Man U to then use as a cash cow to pay off that debt, so basically i don't think any Yank involvement in our game is for the long term good, anyway i'm going off on a tangent here.
I know it's early days with Jesse, but i'll say what i see as we go along good and bad and i'm sorry but in my eyes we've just lost the best thing since sliced bread and he's gonna get both barrels. My first impressions are he's gonna be a complete and utter fcking disaster and is not gonna be given a fair shout really because he's been handed the same bag of shyte that Bert got handed and i don't feel he's up to the task at all, he's actually perhaps been given better shyte than Bert coz they're so called internationals, but the clown found them so good luck with that, i'll leave it here for the moment and wait till you wake up, but i'm glad you're here and intrigued to say the least, just take my views with a pinch of salt and imagine steam coming out my ears and that i'm about to blow a gasket as i type and we'll be fine.
As time goes by you won't believe the amount of English fans here that don't have a fcking clue about how the game can and should be played, but i've got to be honest here, pre Bert i never thought it could be played the way he did, no actually i did but i never thought i'd see it at Leeds.

I'll be back but i can't usually be arsed typing at length coz too much shyte comes in my head and i go off on one.
Good to have you here.

Btw, what's your interest in football, are you a player or coach yourself or just a fan of the game ?

[Kennyb41]

If you took the points from Bielsa's matches earlier in the season against the teams still left to play when he was sacked then we would have finished on 37 points, not 33. Whilst it cannot be a definitive argument it is really the fairest one, unlike when people claimed JM was a miracle worker when we went 5 unbeaten simply because it was against poor opposition that Bielsa had also got similar points against.

I have no problem with Marsch but we had a manager who got more out of the players than any other manager had done previously. With Marsch I see someone who isn't getting the best out of the players and seems to be stumbling from one match to another making several changes each game and seemingly not knowing who is in his strongest line-up. The contrast to Bielsa coming into the club and transforming the side despite not making any signings (PB was the only signing of note and he was injured for the majority of Bielsa's first season) and JM coming in and making the side look worse is staggering.

We were in trouble under Bielsa but the players were capable of turning bad results around, we saw it time and again, remember Bielsa looking crestfallen after we lost to QPR despite beating them on all the relevant stats, remember everyong panicking when we had that bad run of losses in our promotion year that came to an abrupt end when we won 5 on the bounce before covid paused the season. That was what I could see happening, forget the 5 unbeaten under Marsch it could easily have been 5 or 6 wins on the bounce under Bielsa, just like how we ended last season. Tired squad my ar$e look how we finished last season. Bielsa sacked after losing to Tottenham during a bad run of results. Yet we had more shots than Spurs in that match, that single stat told me everything and told me what we had seen under Bielsa so many times that when we had a abd run we were still having more possession than the opposition and more chances just that because of the nature of football anomalies happen, especially when your best striker is injured and the opposition have Kane and Son. That's where people like Orta should have been earnign their money, they should have been anaylsing those stats and realising that we could turn it around because a lot of what we were doing was working we just weren't scoring and were conceding too many but play against the lesser teams and it would work.

Getting KP back would have been huge for Bielsa, it would have made his team work again. It was the heartbeat of the team. With Bielsa in charge and KP in the team I would have been fancying us to take at least 4 points, if not 6, from our remaining two matches. As it is though now I am just hoping that the gods smile down on us and give our goal a charmed life and we somehow nick a goal, probably something akin to the second half v Watford where they should have scored then gifted us a goal.

3 years of dreaming and now the nightmares return.

Weasel who do you think consider responsible for the PB purchase Bert or the clown ?

Because even if it wasn't already done or at least in the pipeline i still won't be budged that it wasn't the clown, and look at the fcking miracles Bert performed on him. He was a reject at former clubs and there must've been a bung in it for the clown from Boro but that's another story.

PB can't hit a cows arse and still can't most of the time, jeez if he took 50% of his chances he'd be another Shearer etc.
But Bert transformed him into something else other than JUST a striker, he became an integral part of the machine with his running and positioning sense and loads of other stuff i can't be arsed to write.

Basically the clown bought him, Bert transformed him into international class, and i'll guarantee you now, his international days are over, and that's because Bert's gone and not his injury.

[lufc1304]

I'm not convinced by him, talks a good game but I'm not sure he really knows what he's doing. Given a nigh on impossible job to do with a shot squad, so he has to be cut some slack, but his narrow style is ugly and, in all likelihood, ineffective, even in the Championship. The summer will be interesting in terms of the type of player we pursue but I'm sceptical.

[Jaydog]

Don’t think anyone on here believes in Marsch Kenny tbh. Maybe some will give him a chance but not for long. If we go down or even miraculously stay up how long does he get next season with his own squad. 3 months. If things still look then like they do now it’ll be bye bye. And then who?
I do fear for Marsch, the underlying facts are not good. It was easy to get carried away with the 5 game unbeaten run but the bare facts of those games aren’t too convincing with hindsight. It was just a bit of feel good that everyone needed after the early part of the season. I have never in all my days seen a team so decimated by injury and ill discipline. You think it can’t get any worse but it always does.
I don’t believe for one second we can beat Brighton, absolutely no chance. We might of been better of playing them away as ER is no fortress. Quite the opposite. No one fears going there now, not even Norwich.
If only the biscuit trio could of stayed in one piece for five minutes we might of consigned this whole conversation to the bin where it belongs.

[Jaydog]

Just looking at a player quote from Bob Bradley’s 3 month Swansea debacle. “I was brought in by the previous manager but then he got sacked & Bradley came in. He drove everybody mad, none of us knew what we were supposed to be doing”. Sound familiar.

[weasel]

Weasel who do you think consider responsible for the PB purchase Bert or the clown ?

Because even if it wasn't already done or at least in the pipeline i still won't be budged that it wasn't the clown, and look at the fcking miracles Bert performed on him. He was a reject at former clubs and there must've been a bung in it for the clown from Boro but that's another story.

PB can't hit a cows arse and still can't most of the time, jeez if he took 50% of his chances he'd be another Shearer etc.
But Bert transformed him into something else other than JUST a striker, he became an integral part of the machine with his running and positioning sense and loads of other stuff i can't be arsed to write.

Basically the clown bought him, Bert transformed him into international class, and i'll guarantee you now, his international days are over, and that's because Bert's gone and not his injury.

I would say that it was likely something along the lines of Bielsa having analysed the squad thoroughly told Orta he needed a striker and that we needed to do whatever we could to raise the funds to get one which meant selling 1 of only 2 players we had that would fetch any money at the time (Vieira and Jannson). Bielsa likely had a list of attributes that he wanted in a striker but probably also wanted someone who was used to playing in the championship so wouldn't need as much time to adapt - I think it is telling that Bielsa resisted bringing in foreign players etc and even the loan signings had championship experience. So Bielsa gave Orta his requirements and Orta likely drew up quite a short list with Bamford being on it as a player he knew well from his time at Boro. Bamford likely was the best option out of a limited list and Orta would have also known that Boro were willing to sell.

We overpaid for Bamford at the time and if it hadn't have been for Bielsa we would have spent £7m on a striker that likely would have not done much and likely sold on at a loss. It is full credit to Bielsa for transforming Bamford's all round game and having the belief in him. Also huge credit to Bamford for working his socks off and allowing Bielsa to improve him. I do feel that a lot of Bamford's poor finishing in the promotion year (forget the first year due to injuries) was due to him being tired when chances came his way due to the amount of running and hard word he had done during the games - a great example was a match where Bamford (and Kiko) cleared the ball off our goal line and we broke at lightning speed and the ball was squared to Bamford who's shot hit the post (I think it was Harrison who followed up and scored). Bamford had ran the length of the field and by the time he got to have the shot must have been knackered. It was no surprise to me that Bamford did better last season as he was more used to the physical demands and his body was used to it and as such when chances came his way he wasn't as tired - this is also why I am at odds with people who suggest 'Bielsa burnout' etc as I think players under Bielsa would get stronger from year to year as their bodies got more used to the physical demands (sort of why atheletes train hard and their times get better as their career progresses rather than setting a world record in their first run and then their career going downhill.

[Kennyb41]

Just looking at a player quote from Bob Bradley’s 3 month Swansea debacle. “I was brought in by the previous manager but then he got sacked & Bradley came in. He drove everybody mad, none of us knew what we were supposed to be doing”. Sound familiar.

Yep it's too much too soon and they haven't the time to grasp it, whatever 'it' is.

I can think of many ways to play against BHA and Brentford but don't think any will work in our current state if we want to go for the win, there's too much mess with everything and a huge gamble.

I agree with "it's only BHA ffs" and with Bert would be saying go for it, but we have become useless going on the attack and will fall apart and just get picked off. We desperately need 1pt atm and i'd go for that, then perhaps have to go for the win against Brentford.

We're really fucked though going on the offense (did you like that Paul?) or going on the defence because we've lost our way with both, and are in the lap of the gods.

[Cjay]

Marsch's here - injury update
Harrison contusion looks positive. Training tomorrow andready for Sunday. Rapha fine. Patrick too early to tell. Evaluate that next few days.


Staying bright?
Feeling after matches is painful. First chance/shot opponent has in the game goes in. Add that to the red cards make the games difficult. Have to start better, get the lead and eliminate the opponent from scoring so quickly


Red card message to players?
Discipline is important. Best way to give us a chance is to not jeoparidese the state of the match with reds.

Opponents nothing to play for - help you?
Brighton - In theory, heard the phrase on the beach, but watch their game last weekend you would not have said that. Incredible performance. Watched that match in London and we saw a team very clear and confident with the ball, against the ball. Expect that again. Preparing for them is tricky. Differnt things in different phases. We know we need the result


Bamford
Everyone working together to evaluate his chances.



Mentality after the reds?
Certainly a discussion point. We know being aggressive, but not overzealous. Discipline or pressure of the moment or players want to achieve so badly. We know these last two we cannot afford more reds

Over wound up?
I asked the coaches, but even my last talk before Chelsea was calm. Finger on the pulse of what the team needs, tactically, training wise and from my personality, message was to stay calm and focused. Continued with that, but obviously a team that is aggressive, especially at home wants to achieve for their fans. Perform for their fans. Aware of the fact that killed us and cannot have it again.


Ignore Burnley result?
Our approach is such we have to win the match. Regardless of Burnley, they have a match on Thursday too. Three points helps us and that's our focus.



Stamped your philosophy yet?
Blend of different things. Style of play and being pragmatic. Balance of that with the seven matches before City was really, really good. Picked up big results and turned the momentum. That came from seizing the moment against Norwich. Had to find a way to win and changed the momentum. That's clear right now. Situation not easy and clear we needed points. Mentally and physically ready to seize moments.

Not close to what I want it to look like. Work ethic is always there, which makes working with these players fun.



Using pundits' relegation talk as motivation?
Certanly a chip on the shoulder with the identity of this club. Have not read much of the media coverage. Have to focus energy on regenerating and going again with backs against the wall. Psychologically and mentally healthy important. Outside talk little effect


Biggest game for years?
Haven't been here long enough to comment. We know we need to win



Support from elsewhere in the club?
Ownership spoke to the team yesterday. We are unified. We all believe in each other. Impressed in difficult moments with the ownership and board. Their ability to stay together, unified. That part's been awesome.



Discipline issue - before you arrived to - still in control of the dressing room?
Not about my control, but are we united? Desire on the pitch. Two red cards, we know they crossed the one and they hurt us. We want to be aggressive.



Fans?
Phenomenal. Amazing. Moment after the game, all disappointed, but walking about the pitch and there was a little boy who ran on the field. Running after his heroes. Kalvin grabbed him and took him over. The way the fans, they see who KP is, because his heart and his life is on the one for this club. Unique sense of community in this club. Very thankful to be a part of that identity and understand how special that is.

Part of the reason for the reds - no accident Luke's tackle comes in front of the away fans. They want to be do everything to please the fans.

[Cjay]

Not keen on the board talking to the players . . That seems wrong to me.

Orta crying and shouting

Radz talking about how much he has spent and what he has done.

Kinnear just mumbling about how great Radz is and making sarky comments about second season syndrome.

Marathe banging on about the super bowl and how awesome everyone is.

Can see it now

[Kennyb41]

Well we've got the advantage of knowing the Burnley result before we play.

That is massive if they lose win or draw we should know what to do and whether to go for the win or the draw, lose and we should try and get a point in front of them, any other and we have to go for the win.

[BlackHillsPaul]

Btw, what's your interest in football, are you a player or coach yourself or just a fan of the game ?

I grew up playing the game in the 1970's. I was very lucky that my family lived in California at the time because I had access to good coaching. Mostly Mexican American's and South American's. I had an opportunity to play at University level but turned it down because my family couldn't afford to send me to the school that was recruiting me. Later I coached at youth level. And also earned a referee badge. Mostly I've just been a fan of the beautiful game. If I had to pick a favorite player of all time it would be the great Socrates of Brazil.

[Jimang]

I think we have to go for the win in both games, even if Burnley lose to Spurs which we desperately need them to do, they will still have two games left and a much better goal difference. Even if we win both our games we can easily still be relegated, so we need six points for sure.

[William]

I think we have to go for the win in both games, even if Burnley lose to Spurs which we desperately need them to do, they will still have two games left and a much better goal difference. Even if we win both our games we can easily still be relegated, so we need six points for sure.

Agreed, I just wonder what going for the win will look like when we will have three at the back with two wide players and two DFMs.

Going to be tough this but if we can get it down to the last game anything can happen.

[Leeds1000]

I chose no then instantly changed my mind to unsure. And that's how i feel about Marsch. I guess he deserves a clean slate shot at it once we know where we are. Orta convinced the board that Jesse was our man so he must have something about him......!

[Kennyb41]

I grew up playing the game in the 1970's. I was very lucky that my family lived in California at the time because I had access to good coaching. Mostly Mexican American's and South American's. I had an opportunity to play at University level but turned it down because my family couldn't afford to send me to the school that was recruiting me. Later I coached at youth level. And also earned a referee badge. Mostly I've just been a fan of the beautiful game. If I had to pick a favorite player of all time it would be the great Socrates of Brazil.

Nice to know your background, sounds a very interesting one, you seem very knowledgeable, what position did you play yourself, many, or just one main one ?

[BlackHillsPaul]

Nice to know your background, sounds a very interesting one, you seem very knowledgeable, what position did you play yourself, many, or just one main one ?

Mostly Left Wing or Striker in a 4-3-3. Later I had an Italian coach that wanted me to play Left Wingback in a 5-4-1. Had about as much joy as Raphinha playing Right Wingback under Marsch....

[Scoobychief]

its obvious we need to win v brighton obvious. and at brent obvious too.

[mentalcase]

Maybe the board have spoke to tell them they are 100% behind their efforts, then begging them not to give up and get relegated, whilst telling them everything is rosey and we have massive plans for next year.