Jesse Marsch must regret Leeds United dig at Marcelo Bielsa as yet another injury blow emerges
Jesse Marsch now looks ridiculous after he suggested Marcelo Bielsa was the cause of the Leeds United squad having so many injury issues this season.
On 12 April, Marsch told talkSPORT that his players were “over-trained” by Bielsa before he arrived, saying it “led to them being physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically in a difficult place to recover from week to week, game to game”.
Leeds’ injury issues this season have been well-documented and those issues have almost certainly been the major factor behind our poor results this season.
However, the number of injuries since Marsch came in suggests that Bielsa wasn’t the problem after all.
Since Marsch was hired by the Whites at the end of February, several key players have suffered injuries.
While some cannot be put down to being over-trained – Stuart Dallas’ leg break on Saturday being an example – there have also been issues behind the scenes at Thorp Arch.
Speaking of Dallas, he’s the latest in a line of players to have been ruled out for the rest of Leeds’ season with the Northern Irishman having to undergo surgery on his broken leg.
But away from him, Crysensio Summerville, Adam Forshaw and Tyler Roberts have all had their seasons ended early.
Patrick Bamford is on the way back from his latest setback but Marsch hasn’t been able to avoid the England striker getting injured too as he got injured 23 minutes into the win at Wolves on 18 March.
Liam Cooper’s also injured now. He missed Leeds’ defeat to Manchester City on Saturday.
Marsch has been made to look a bit silly really because he’s probably having just as many injury issues at Bielsa had before he was sacked.
Speaking to MOT Leeds News on 17 April, Paul Robinson said that he was unhappy with Marsch’s comments about Bielsa’s training methods.
At the time, Robinson said: “It’s easy to criticise another manager when your methods are different.”
And he was spot on when he said that – especially now that Marsch can’t seem to keep his players fit and ready to play with the relegation zone just two points behind us.
In other Leeds United news, Andy Dunn has blasted Paul Tierney for his “shambolic” decisions in the loss to Manchester City.