'Braver' - Jesse Marsch on Leeds United alternative to James Milner chase and big Whites 'get'

Marsch’s side will return to Premier League action today with a 2pm kick-off at Nottingham Forest in which the club’s new USA international midfielder Weston McKennie is set to make his Whites debut. McKennie completed a move from Serie A giants Juventus on transfer deadline day eve to become United’s third American international alongside summer signings Tyler Adams and Brenden Aaronson.

That, though, says Marsch, was not specifically by design and more in keeping with a bold transfer strategy that the Whites boss is optimistic will yield big dividends all round. Opening up about United’s recent signings, Marsch admitted it would have been easy for Leeds to chase experienced stars such as former Whites favourite Milner but the Leeds boss has hailed the work of the club and director of football Victor Orta in eyeing younger untapped potential with a view to the longer term. The acquisition of McKennie, still only 24 years old, says Marsch, is a classic case in point.

"I obviously knew of Weston and we had met as acquaintances a couple of times but it's not like we really knew each other,” said Marsch. "When Weston's name is discussed in the precipice of the idea of of having him here I always wanted to do homework and certainly part of that homework is talking to people that know him and are close to him and have played with him or coached him and then there's also the conversation that you want that the conversation or conversations that you have with the player. What I saw from Weston right away, what I heard was, a great guy, a great teammate, a competitor, confident.

"And then when I spoke to him, what I learned was hungry, desire to improve the belief that that he's done well in his career, but that he has so much more to achieve and so much more to learn and so when I kind of combined watching him over the years, the people that I know that know him and then the conversations that we had, for me, it was a no brainer.

"It was a no brainer and to be honest, I think it's a transfer that we should be proud of as Leeds United to make because of bringing in a player like him from Juventus. We want to grow our stature but where we are right now I think it's a big get and I think he's going to help us a lot."

Asked if there were any more of his American compatriots that Leeds could sign, Marsch pondered: "It's funny that it's kind of worked out this way, really. Six months ago, I wouldn't have thought Weston McKennie would be an option or maybe not even necessarily the right fit. But given where we were I thought he was the perfect guy, we thought. He was always on our list but we thought we had an opportunity and then we thought it was the right time for the right fit.

"Victor does a really good job of scouting and having lists and rankings of players that we think can fit where we're going and he tries to understand what the manager expects from his teams, and then how to supplement the right kind of people within the squad to achieve what he wants to achieve. And he did this with Marcelo as well.

"I think Victor is really open to that, he really finds himself almost a servant of the needs of the manager and the team and the club and I'm very thankful to have someone like that and we have a lot of good discussions but there's never real arguments because we're pretty aligned in almost every way.

"I don't know, he has a lot of contacts, I have a lot of contacts, when we start putting it all together we just start thinking about which are the right players to help us for where we are at the moment and I think how we've worked together has been fantastic and I feel like we've we've done a good job."

Marsch added: "We have built this with young players. We haven't gone out one time I don't think and got an experienced 30 year old Premier League player because I think a lot of what we're trying to do is build a process where we're going to get stronger and stronger. We're not just building a squad for right now but for the development of what we want this club to become, which we think is the right strategy.

"It would have been easy along the way to go after and bring James Milner back or try to do some things like this to bring in Premier League experience or veteran players that understand the league and in some ways it's a little bit braver where we're at and what we're doing, could say risky.

"But we believe in building a process where we're going to pick up some good young players, get them at a price where where it still makes sense within our budget, and help them to become Premier League stars and help them take the next step in their career and in the process build this club to get bigger and stronger. And we both believe that's the right strategy."