Jesse Marsch is still helping Leeds United despite February sack after turning down Leicester City job
Jesse Marsch may have been sacked by Leeds United back in February, but the American is still helping the club after he turned down the Leicester job.
The Whites sacked Marsch with the team having the fewest wins in the division at the time and teetering in a relegation battle despite spending a vast amount of money on new players.
But while Leeds have seen their situation improve somewhat since replacing him with Javi Gracia, the clubs around them are all still panicking and making changes.
Leicester City became the latest of the teams in battle to sack their boss when they axed Brendan Rodgers, and with eight games remaining of their season it seems unlikely to be an easy job.
However there was some surprise that Marsch was seen as one of the leading contenders to take over at the King Power Stadium after the trouble he had at Leeds and with Premier League football.
But while a deal was said to be advanced and close to completion, a report from Fabrizio Romano (10 April) now says that the deal is off after the two parties couldn’t come to an agreement on terms in the final stages of negotiations.
That follows Marsch also entering into talks with Southampton almost immediately after being sacked and being on the verge of taking over as manager there before talks broke down at the final hurdle again.
Without even knowing it, and probably totally accidentally, Marsch continues to help Leeds in their battle against the drop.
All this negotiating with other teams and then pulling out at the last minute means their plans and situations are constantly changing, meaning their struggles on the pitch continue too.
Southampton have failed to get any sort of bounce from Ruben Selles, who eventually took over as manager until the end of the season, and they sit bottom of the league.
Then you have Leicester who will now have to start their process all over again to bring someone in, and we know it won’t be who they actually wanted which will hurt their performances and give the new man less time to work with the team.
All of these things help Leeds, who are well into the process of staying in the league despite the 5-1 loss to Crystal Palace on Sunday (9 April) and will hope to continue improving in order to stay up.
But if they do, and either Leicester, Southampton, or both get relegated, that will be in part due to Marsch saying thanks but no thanks and wrecking them.
Cheers, Jesse.
In other Leeds news, the club want to sign this £27m forward in the summer and he is open to leaving his current club.