Willy Gnonto has made Jesse Marsch ideas at Leeds United look ‘incredibly ugly’ – BBC reporter
Willy Gnonto’s early play against Wolves made Jesse Marsch’s Leeds United tactics look “incredibly ugly”, according to BBC Leeds’ Jonny Buchan.
The Whites were infamously narrow under the American and often lacked a distinct style of play outside of trying to do everything at 100 miles an hour, but new boss Javi Gracia’s game-plans look to be having the desired effect after taking seven points from his first 12.
Italian attacker Gnonto was a threat over and over down the left flank in the opening exchanges of the wild 4-2 win at Molineux on Saturday (18 March) and Buchan believes it showed the error of Marsch’s ways.
Speaking on the Don’t Go To Bed Just Yet podcast for BBC Sport on Tuesday (21 March, 3m 25s) Buchan said: “The first 15 minutes or so it was the Gnonto show. Every ball [was] ‘get it to Willy’ and you just wanted one of those to pay of, which obviously it did… That it was he can do, he was so dangerous in those early stages.”
Adam Pope added: “He hugged the touchline. A bit of width.”
And Buchan followed up: “He has also made what Jesse Marsch was trying to do look incredibly ugly hasn’t it? Because it was so simple to see. Get it a bit of width and it’s so much better to watch.”
Pope agreed: “How many times under [Marcelo] Bielsa did we see Liam Cooper hit a diagonal ball? And we saw it twice within a minute.”
Better late than never
If Gracia keeps this sort of form up then Premier League safety should be reached without the nail-biting finish it required last year.
It is easy to revise all memories of the Marsch era to a chaotic mess now that he is gone, but he did ultimately succeed in keeping the club up last season if nothing else.
And the drama-filled win at Wolves is in some ways a poor example to illustrate the difference between the past two permanent Leeds United managers, in that they both secured three points in the same fixture exactly a year apart in two games that defied logic at times, with both including 3-0 leads pegged back, Wolves red cards and messy Luke Ayling goal celebrations.
Gracia has also marginalised Gnonto to an extent since his arrival, despite the summer signing being the star of the show under Marsch.
He has left him out of the starting line-up in two out of four Premier League games and taken him off after just an hour in the others, which has come as a surprise even though in both cases it has paid off with wins.
Whether it is Gnonto, Jack Harrison – whom the Italian assisted the opener for at the weekend in his early spell of dominance – or Crysencio Summerville, it looks like the Spaniard has a plan to get the best out of his attacking wide men, and so far it is getting results.
In other Leeds United news, the Whites are set to share a good amount of transfer profit for an imminent permanent exit from Elland Road.
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