By Joe Ellis

14th Sep, 2022 | 7:10am

Leeds United relegation escape secret revealed by Jamie Shackleton

Leeds United just about managed to survive relegation from the Premier League last season and Jamie Shackleton has suggested why.

The 22-year-old is currently on loan at Millwall in the Championship with Jesse Marsch opting to bring in new players in his positions of central midfield and right-back.

But he has praised the American’s arrival at Elland Road and believes that the sudden nature of his appointment after Marcelo Bielsa was sacked was the secret to the club’s survival.

“It was a big change to what we had been used to,” Shackleton said, as quoted by Leeds Live. “But there wasn’t really time to dwell or think of anything other than getting on board with what Jesse and his staff wanted to do and what they wanted to bring to the club.

“All the lads bought into that brilliantly and we just about got the points that we needed to do what mattered most and to keep the club in the Premier League.”

One-off

In a way, Leeds United were fortunate that a coach of Marsch’s competence was available when they took the decision to rid Bielsa of his duties at Thorp Arch in February.

After so many years under the Argentinian, it was going to take a very astute footballing mind to be able to coach a new philosophy into the players in such a short space of time and with the peril of relegation looming.

Thankfully, Marsch’s own ideology of how to play the game was not too dissimilar to that of Bielsa with perhaps less gung-ho running and more thought to the high press.

So it didn’t take long for the players to get on board and once the injuries began to clear themselves up, you could see the potential in the team and the manager.

That has started to come to fruition in the new campaign which has Leeds looking up and not down the Premier League table in a relaxing change of pace.

In other Leeds United news, there are new changes to VAR coming for next season and it should be joyous for Whites supporters.