Ex-Leeds United hero lays down 'huge' challenge for under-fire Jesse Marsch despite sympathy

It doesn't matter who you are, if you take two points from 24 you're going to feel the pressure and that's where Jesse Marsch finds himself with Leeds United.

The way the fixture list worked out and the desperately poor points tally we've taken from recent games meant that the Leicester City and Fulham games were nothing short of huge and Leeds needed at least four, if not six points, from them.

But after the disappointment at the Kingpower Stadium, the Fulham game went wrong in a number of ways and unfortunately the team are now badly underperforming. They're making mistakes. Marsch is trying all sorts of things to rectify the situation but no matter what he tries, nothing is working and these are tough times.

There were definitely a couple of surprises in his selection on Sunday - Rasmus Kristensen has been improving in his last few games but Luke Ayling came back in on the right side of the defence. Thinking back to last year, at Brentford, for the club's biggest game in years, Marsch shocked everyone when he went with Sam Greenwood in midfield and he made that big call again. And up front, it was always going to depend on how Patrick Bamford came through, fitness wise, after Leicester, so although you might have liked to see Bamford in there again for what he brings to the team, it was Rodrigo and that wasn't a huge surprise.

I thought Ayling did quite well and the Greenwood call didn't quite work the same the second time, but Marsch is trying to shuffle the pack to produce 11 players who get out there and do what he requires. Sadly we're doing it in fits and starts and that's just not enough.

We started okay, we were the ones dictating play and we looked quite good, probably worth the opener from Rodrigo, but as ever in the Premier League, whatever mistake you make will be found out and so to go into the lead then give away such a sloppy goal from a set-piece is hugely disappointing.

Giving Aleksandar Mitrovic five yards in the area will only have one result.

In the second half Fulham were plucky, they were organised and we, yet again, made silly mistakes that allowed them to take three deserved points.

I feel for Marsch because there's no way they didn't work on set-pieces during the week. There's just no way they didn't work out how to pick up Mitrovic. Marsch doesn't tell Rodrigo to do crazy cross-field passes. The players are making those individual errors and during a game there's nothing a manager can do about that. It's a similar story with the chances being squandered in front of goal. We're underperforming as a group and looking at what we've got, in terms of talent, we just aren't showing what we're capable of. I think back to the Chelsea game, the second half against Arsenal, parts of the first half against Crystal Palace, and that's where we can see what we can do. But we're not showing it anywhere near enough at present.

That's got to change pretty quickly. Of course Liverpool away wouldn't be the game I would have chosen as the one where we could go and change things dramatically, and while you never know what can happen, he somehow needs to get some belief into the boys because errors and missed chances are impacting the overall play now.

Leeds are in a really difficult spot and we're going to see exactly what Marsch is all about. We know he's really positive and I'm sure he'll try to galvanise the boys. That’s a huge challenge for him right now. They need to put the devastation they obviously felt on Sunday to the back of their minds and crack on again.Every ex player will recall times when everything seemed to go wrong, no matter what you did or what you tried, and yet there's no option but to roll up your sleeves, work hard and try to perform to the very best of your ability.

Liverpool is such a difficult place to go and such a difficult opponent to face when you're struggling. The second half of the Rangers game, when they scored six, showed us that even though they're in a sticky patch themselves, they will always represent a difficult game.

What is vital is that we get a performance, just something, a platform to take a step from and that means no mistakes. A solid, professional performance is called for. What they gets us, let's see but more of the mistakes that we've been seeing too much of is not going to help.