Andrew Taylor walks a mile in another man's shoes to discover same Leeds United difficulty

The problem is not the players, their attitude or ability for there are some stars and some very ‘Leeds’ characters among the bunch, rather the issue this season has almost always been their availability.

Where Leeds would be in the Premier League 2 table had Jackson and, latterly Taylor, enjoyed a full complement of the club’s best Under-23 talent is anyone’s guess but they would most certainly not be languishing so close to the bottom.

The flip side of that particular problem is that Leeds’ best youngsters have been missing in 23s action because of their proximity to the first team - not only filling spots on the bench but getting match minutes here and there in the Premier League.

Taylor took over from Jackson, who was handed his own first-team involvement as part of Jesse Marsch’s new-look interim staff, in February and has been less deprived of the more established ‘kids’ than his predecessor. He’s enjoying being back out on the grass in a new role, having set aside his work as Leeds’ loans manager.

“It’s been really good, a pleasure to work with some top players, top academy players,” he said.

“The standard is really good. It’s good that they get the opportunity to go and train with the first team regularly because, then, when they do come back down, you can see the ones who’ve been training with the first team because their levels are much higher - everything, the level of quality, detail, intensity, everything. You can tell the ones who’ve been consistently up there with the first-team group.”

Marsch and his staff - Cam Toshack and Franky Schiemer - have taken a keen interest in the 23s, attending games and going through video clips, which Taylor appreciates all the more given the urgency of the first-team situation they walked into. Jackson, meanwhile, has been a “great help” to the man who has replaced him and an effective link between what are now two separate squads, thanks to the relationships he built with the young players.

Taylor echoes what Jackson said previously this season about the balancing act between results and player development. An Under-23s coach wants to prepare as many players as possible for the giant leap to top-flight senior football. He wants to win games too, though.

“I think when you’re a youth-team player, when I’m talking younger, it is probably performance development,” he said.

“And yes, the Under-23s is a development team, it’s a development league and the whole idea is to get from there into the first team, however, part of that process, for me, at Under-23s is trying to prepare the lads on how to win games of football and the importance of winning the game of football.”

The next chance to do that comes at Elland Road in front of what will be a 17,000-plus crowd on Friday night, against Manchester City, a side that boasts a strength in depth that Taylor admits is the difference between the two clubs.

“This one on Friday night, you probably don’t get any closer to a Premier League game than you will with 20,000 people at home, at Elland Road, against a really, really strong Manchester City team who are going for their title,” said Taylor.

“They want to win the league. We need to win to stay in the league. So there’s that added pressure of needing to win the game as well. So it all adds up to, hopefully, a really good night.”

Taylor and the coaching team are keen not to overplay the importance of the game, or the attendance, which is expected to be a divisional record, but he does want them to relish it as a rehearsal for the reality they’re all chasing.

“We’ve tried not to, I think the lads know that; they’re not daft,” he said. “They understand the size of the game, especially when you start talking about crowds and everything else.

“They’ll understand the magnitude of the game and the occasion and I think it’s important that the players embrace it. You’ve got to embrace the pressure - pressure’s a privilege - you’ve got to embrace it because they all want a career in Leeds’ first team and that’s there every week. Every Saturday you’re gonna have that, 10 times.

“It’s at Elland Road, it’s at home in the comfort of familiar surroundings. Loans are great. You get that experience but, if we can give them that experience from within, from within our own club, you know, that’s unbelievable.

“So I think it’s a great, great exposure for them on a bit more of a controlled level if you like - the crowd will be there to support our lads - and, hopefully, they all thrive.”

Speaking on Wednesday morning, Taylor had not yet been informed of the players that would be available to him - welcome to Jackson’s world - but was expecting to find out later that day.

Even if Charlie Cresswell, for example, or Joe Gelhardt are scheduled to play, it does not mean they’ll join Taylor in training, so flexibility is king. It helps that the football being coached at first-team level is the same as the idea Taylor is trying to get across, though. “It’s a challenge, I can’t lie,” said Taylor.

“Because of the model we have, a lot of the 23s are involved in that first-team squad on a daily basis and might bob down into us for the games, which means we necessarily don’t have what you would normally have, fully being able to prepare the team in a certain way to play against whoever the opposition is. But that’s part and parcel of football.

“The good thing is the game model from the first team right down is the same. So yes, all right, Cressy won’t be with us all week until the game, but the messages are the same. We try to use the same terminology, tactics. There’s little elements in there that we can change, but the messages are clear throughout.

“The reality is 23s are important, the first team is the pinnacle, that’s the top, so I’m not naive enough and stupid enough to think ‘ah, yeah, we’re gonna get everybody’. We might but, if the manager and staff feel certain players are needed to be ready for Monday [at Crystal Palace], again, from a selfish point of view, it’s [sighs] but really it’s success because that means the players who are not playing for us on Friday have got a hell of a chance of either starting or being involved on the Monday in the Premier League in a really big game for the first team.

“That’s a pro and a con I guess of Under-23 football. I want all of the lads, Cressy, Sam, Joffy, everybody - every week I would have them - but the reality is, success is us having none of them because that means they’re in the first team.

“So we don’t know the full squad yet. We’ll know by the end of today. And then we’ll just adapt.”