Jesse Marsch spoke to the media after his side came back from behind to salvage a point against David Moyes West Ham despite going in front in the first half.
Willy Gnonto scored a fantastic left-footed drive from the edge of the box before the Hammers levelled through Lucas Paqueta’s penalty. Moments after the restart, a terrible pass from Brenden Aaronson allowed Gianluca Scamacca to pounce and rifle home from long distance, but Leeds fought back and an excellent drive from Rodrigo on the edge of the area shared the points. Both sides had chances to win the game but on reflection, a draw was the correct outcome.
Jesse Marsch spoke to the media and sourced from the Youtube channel MARSCHing on together he said, “I’m pleased with the way we pushed the game at 2-1, but I’m very frustrated that it took our players that to go down a goal at that point in the match to play to their potential and to play with their ability and to play with their fearlessness and belief, and so, you know, the first half for me wasn’t good enough in terms of that, we played backwards too much, we invite the opponent into the match too much, even after we scored the goal, we played backwards too much it leads ultimately to the penalty when we’re inviting them into our end, and that’s not what we want. That’s not how we want to play and, so I have to find the pressure points. I have to push the buttons to get our players to perform like they’re down a goal, I guess, or to play like they do when sometimes we play against top opponents because they were nervy, we were nervy.”
He added, “A Little bit of frustration and confusion about how to get them to be what I know they can become, how to be the team that I know we can be, and how to have them remove this idea of pressure and stress and focus on exactly what the game needs to be, and then perform at our level.”
The Leeds players paid an emotional tribute to Mateusz Klich with t-shirts, a guard of honour and messages on the big screen from past and present teammates as the former Polish international is set to depart the club and switch to the MLS. Jesse Marsch was asked about the situation with ‘Klichy’ and he said, “Well, this was not a black-and-white decision. This was a lot of different discussions, Klichy being provided with an opportunity that he thought was a little bit more long-standing and provided stability for his family and an opportunity to try something new.”
“So him and I had discussions over the last three, four weeks, that we’re often unsure about what the final decision should be, and by the way, it’s not finalised quite yet. I mean, it looks like it’s going in that direction, we’re all wearing t-shirts and understand, I understand that makes everybody believe it’s finalised, but even at this moment, I knew in a match like this one, we needed more courage on the pitch that Klichy was the right guy to have because this is who he is, this is how he lives life, this is how he plays football, so yeah, won’t be easy to lose him, and I’m not, I think if we were to say between he and I, we’re not absolutely sure that it’s the right decision, but I certainly wish the best for him”.
The point sees Leeds sit in 14th place with 17 points and West Ham lie in 17th place with 15 points. Both sides will be in FA Cup action this week when the Whites travel to Cardiff City and the Hammers make the short trip to play Brentford. Leeds will be back in Premier League action when Jesse Marsch takes his side to play Aston Villa on Friday the 13th of January for an 8 pm kick-off. A win could move Marsch’s men up one place to 13th and more importantly 5 points clear of the drop zone.
New signing Maximilian Wober is expected to feature in the cup game with Cardiff City and Jesse Marsch will be hoping the club can add some more faces to his squad as soon as possible.