Every word from Leeds United boss Jesse Marsch's pre-Aston Villa press conference

“I think he had surgery last Wednesday so it’s been eight days, maybe it was Thursday so seven days. The immediate feedback has been that it was not so severe and that they trimmed up his knee really well and his knee hasn’t reacted, he doesn’t have much swelling and he has full range of motion and he is walking without a limp and it looks like the recovery could be a matter of weeks instead of months.”

“I think they are both possibilities from the start and are certainly close to 100 per cent. Adam Forshaw told me he hasn’t felt this good in weeks so I think he will be absolutely ready for the match tomorrow and Diego as well. Diego has trained and will be ready as well. He had a small muscle issue but it kept him out of availability for the weekend but he will certainly be in the squad tomorrow.”

“For me, I am so happy not to speak German any more. It’s the inter-nation of language and it’s the small details of what words and when that makes communication effective or not. I became relatively fluent in German but I wasn’t able to capture every moment as well as I can in English. Even the thought of coming here, there’s so many things I think that I touched on in the first press conference, the people here, the connection I have with the leaders in the club, the idea of what the club is and wants to become and how the playing style can transfer from Marcelo to me. But a lot of it is also that I feel much more comfortable in my ability to implement, to communicate, to describe and also I think the emotion comes across when I am just able to speak my mother tongue. What’s funny is that maybe I am ridiculed more for my language here in England than I would be in Germany and it is my native language but we will get through that! I am not worried about that!”

“I would start with first talking about watching him as a player when he was at Liverpool. He was a player I admired because of his passion and will on the pitch. I think for a manager like him, he’s trying to then use those qualities to translate to his team, to impose upon his team, that’s clear. I think they’ve responded to him really well despite every result not being what they want. I can relate with that. I was nowhere near the quality of player that Steven was, but I try to embody a full mentality on the pitch and to be a player who played with no fear and went after the game and after the opponent at all moments. I appreciate what he has said. We played against LA, I think when he was there we won 3-2 with a late goal with a late penalty, but he scored in that game if I remember correctly. LA is the jewel of MLS, and the superstars that they’ve had there over the years - David Beckham and countless other guys - meant that the games in LA were always exciting and fun and had a lot of emotion.”

“It’s one thing to say you need to defend better, then it’s another to be clear with what your tactical model is and how you want your team to behave. For me, with the way that we play, it’s not fair to say that Illan needs to improve his performances, or that the centre backs….. it’s about the team and the clarity with which we want to play. And if you were to talk about their ability to execute that in the game against Leicester, I would say it was a very good, very positive performance, quite unlucky even, the way that we gave up the goal. The one thing I spoke to the team about is that the goal was a result of the fact that when Schmeichel had the ball, we weren’t all ready for exactly what was going to come next and it was too easy for Leicester to walk down the field in our last third and have the opportunity to put together a little quality play like that. The importance in the way we play, that every player is always alert and ready, and clear, and organised, and that the communication on the pitch is as such, and that the roles are understood, is what will make us a better defensive team more so than just the individual performances.”

“I’ll be shocked if they don’t play with a diamond - they’ve got two good results when they’ve played with a diamond. Countinho has been a big factor, playing a ten in the diamond. The two strikers, Ings and Watkins have been very active, and very explosive, specifically in transition moments. They’ve also defended very well. They’re a team I frankly admire what they do with set pieces. I’ve heard they have a set piece coach and the creativity they show and they variation they have with what they do means we have to be alert and ready for any kind of special plays that they might organise. And a team that are very confident, and that can always be dangerous. We will need our fans, we will need a good start, certainly one of the goals in a good start would be to find a way to get the lead - it’s been a long time for us as a team since we’ve had the lead in a match. I think we’ve painted the picture. We’ve all played them a month ago, I think we’ve painted a picture of what to expect from the game and then what our tactics are and what we want to achieve.”

“Liam was in training yesterday and I think he’s making really good progress. Kalvin is a few days behind, we will evaluate on Friday if he’s ready to start to enter training. In my mind, I’m earmarking the international break as a time when we can really start to get him into a training rhythm and get him back to being 100% - maybe it happens earlier, let’s see - but I think what’s most important at this juncture right now is that we don’t have any setbacks and we’re building him in the right ways so that the curve of returning back to play is steep as it can be with no interruptions.”

“We will come up with specific set piece plans for every opponent based on what they present and what their qualities are, and that’s both defensively, offensively, throw ins, and in every aspect of the game. It’s something we’re introducing to the team and they’re grasping well. I find it’s not always exactly what you do with set pieces but just the mentality that those moments in the game are important. We created a plan today and the players’ attention to detail and then their execution on the pitch, even from a training session, was quite good, and we also showed them in the game how they were relatively successful with the things that we wanted them to achieve defensively and offensively, so it’s a good first sign for what we want to become as a set piece team. A lot of it, again is about the mentality - that these moments are important. We’ll keep working on that.”

“I’ve heard from multiple people around the league - friends of mine that are coaches at other teams, and obviously from our players - that this is, if not THE best, one of the best environments and fanbases, and most loud and energetic and supportive fanbases, in the league. So we need them in these two games, I think everybody in the city knows that we need them. Everybody in the city knows that we need points and results and nobody wants to be satisfied with anything but being in the Premier League next year. This is a group effort. We have a one team city, let’s use it to make sure that we are creating momentum in our group and in our team so that we can achieve our goals.”

“We already discussed that this will be a focus of how we address the game. I think it’s important to always identify what the strengths are of a team and what players make a difference. Certainly, everyone knows Coutinho is a great player, and I think that it’ll be really important to make it tight for him, to not give him much room, to be aggressive with him. Clearly not an easy task but not one that’ll be handled by one person, it’ll be a group effort.”