LeedsLive reports on what was said by coach Jesse Marsch after the friendly win in Australia.
The Leeds United head coach spoke to the media on Thursday evening in after the 2-1 win over Brisbane Roar.
The Whites kicked off their Australian tour with a close victory at the Cbus Super Stadium. First half goals from Dan James and Joe Gelhardt secured their third victory in pre-season after wins over Championship clubs Stoke City and Blackpool which finished 1-0 and 4-0 respectively.
Coach Jesse Marsch, when asked about what he made of the occasion and the challenge he faced against Brisbane Roar? said “Yeah, good energy in the crowd, good to see a lot of our fans in one whole end of the pitch, had a lot of Leeds supporters and got to hear some familiar songs and a familiar atmosphere. So that was great.
We had a really good start to the match. Maybe it’s a really close goal, whether it’s offside or not in the first minute, then we were able to push the game and get the two-zero lead.
Brisbane did a good job getting a goal towards the end of the half and then second half they put a lot into it, but our guys got a little bit more fitness. Pascal was able to play 90 minutes tonight. We were injury free.”
The full debrief from Marsch in Gold Coast today. #lufc https://t.co/7aQgulBfAM
— Leeds United Live (@liveleedsunited) July 14, 2022
On teenager Archie Gray he said “Archie’s only 16, comes up through the academy, but now he’s been here with our first team all pre-season, I don’t think anyone should treat him any other way than as part of the team. That’s a credit to Archie and his mentality and his maturity.
So we decided to use him a little bit toward the end of the match tonight, just to get the balance of getting everybody some minutes, but we got to continue to find ways to challenge him and keep pushing him because we believe in his talent.”
When asked about Joe Gelhardt’s game he added “The goal he scored was quite good, quite good and he always has some clever moments around the goal. Tactically, he was aggressive in moments against the ball and then with the ball, he was creative and helped us create some chances. He does really well to get up and win the header on the goal. We had two good goals.”
He was also asked how he was finding pre-season and putting his imprint on the squad, and he said “It’s been important. We enjoyed the time together at the end of last year, but it was a very intense, intensely stressful time.
We stayed calm and that was a big reason why we were able to do well in the moment, but yes, certainly we want to, football-wise, continue to develop the way we want to play and create clarity on the pitch. So there were some good, really good moments tonight and then some things we need to work on.”
Leeds will now prepare themselves for a different type of challenge when they face Steven Gerrard’s Aston Villa on Sunday.
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