Inside Leeds United assistant boss Cameron Toshack's Cyprus spell and his visit to Jesse Marsch

Toshack will be joined by a second as-yet-unnamed assistant in Marsch’s Thorp Arch staff, as the American quickly sets about the daunting task of steering the Whites clear of the Premier League trap door.

According to the man who gave Toshack his first and only experience as a manager in his own right, the 51-year-old was very good at it.

But Jeremy Steele, managing director of football data experts Analytics FC and former sporting director for a group of European clubs, believes Toshack’s new role will suit him perfectly.

He first came across Toshack while seconded to the Premier League by his then employers, Double Pass. Steele’s role was to audit elite academies and Toshack was involved at Swansea City, leading their Under-23s.

“I distinctly remember sitting down with Cam and him being really impressive, with really clear ideas about the game, how he would coach with a strong work ethic and discipline focus,” Steele told the YEP.

“Daniel James has come through that Swansea system with Cameron and he works incredibly hard. I think that’s probably a reflection of how Cam did things - players will run, chase and press. That’s one area I think he’s got in common with Jesse Marsch.

“I made a note at the time - the auditors used to play a game called ‘fantasy academy’ and we would write down the staff we had audited who we would take for each academy role, if we were to take over a club in the Premier League with an unlimited budget.

“In my list, Cameron was at the top of the list for the Under-23s role. I always said, if I had the chance as a sporting director to interview someone for a head coach’s role, I would certainly go back and interview him.”

The other names on Steele’s list - Blackpool boss Neil Critchley and Steven Gerrard’s assistant Michael Beale, both previously academy coaches at Liverpool - say a lot about how highly he rated Toshack after that audit.

In 2019 when Steele became sporting director for a group of clubs, he got a call from the owners to say it was time for a change of manager at Pafos FC, where Željko Kopić - now Dinamo Zagreb boss - was struggling.

“I arrived at the club with Željko in charge,” said Steele.

“He was good, I liked him, he was put in a situation that wasn’t great with a lot of players coming in very late in the season. Jason Puncheon, Bakary Sako, Danny Williams arrived very late and the turnover of players was too high. The team was in a weird situation, the players had arrived without a pre-season, there were injury issues.”

Steele and the group’s CEO Pavel Gognidze wanted to turn the club into one that could develop talent and buck the trend of signing aging players in search of one final contract.

“We wanted someone who had the ability to coach at a high level, who had worked overseas and had adaptability in different environments, and had development experience,” he said.

“He had stepped up to the first team on a caretaker basis at Swansea and coached overseas in Morocco with Wydad Casablanca in the African Champions League, and with the Macedonian national team alongside his father. He’s been technical support staff with the Welsh national team so he’s got a really good adaptability to him. That was probably what got him across the line with Pafos.

“They were worried about a British coach, I guess the reputation of British coaches isn’t great internationally, the sense that they don’t travel well and play a certain type of football. It’ll take a while for them to shed that idea of British coaches playing old-fashioned, long-ball football. That’s why I was keen to bring Cam to the club because I know the new breed of coaches don’t play that football.

“When you’re coaching at high-level Premier League clubs at U23, it’s almost a first-team environment so I had no questions about recommending Cam. He interviewed and I thought he was excellent; he had a clear idea of how he would do things.”

Toshack got the job and Pafos got what the new manager promised in his interview.

“We went from a 23 per cent win rate to 42, 43 per cent, from a relegation dogfight to being one match away from qualifying for the top six in the season split,” said Steele.

“We finished seventh, the club’s highest finish in its history, in a league that’s quite unfairly split. The top six teams spend loads more than everyone else and have consistently been the top six. He was such an impressive bloke, very, very smart. Clear in his tone, you can see why players play for him.”

Toshack followed what Steele called the ‘Swansea way’ in Cyprus, playing possession football and getting his team to press. He led them to wins over top-six sides and, although he departed after just under a year in the role, Steele says that was more reflective of the impact of the pandemic and a change in direction on the owners’ part than anything the Welshman had done.

“It was very successful,” said Steele. “He turned the team around, played fantastic football and we beat everyone. His run of matches was fantastic; we basically beat all the top six.

“I was happy with the appointment, the players loved him and the atmosphere at the club changed completely, so I knew he was good. When he had to leave it was frustrating for me.”

What Toshack did next, alongside working as a Premier League match assessor and guest speaking at events, has now taken on added significance in his career.

“He went to do a study visit, as a lot of coaches do,” said Steele.

“He wanted to stay active and see what others were doing and one of those he went to visit was Jesse Marsch at Leipzig. He spent an entire week with Jesse, who gave him full access, allowed him to be part of the meetings and see everything. Cam lapped it up. I remember calling him and he said ‘I might have to re-think some of my game model’. He really liked some of the things he had seen. He gets on with Jesse, he knew him from before anyway but, obviously, made a good impression. I’m sure when Jesse was offered the Leeds job, Cameron was one of his first calls; he knows the market and the league.”

The job facing Marsch, Toshack and what is expected to be a small staff until the summer at least, is a huge one and it’s daunting. Leeds’ precarious Premier League position is what prompted owner Andrea Radrizzani to replace Marcelo Bielsa with a dozen games remaining.

Steele is delighted to see what is also a huge opportunity present itself to Toshack.

“Cam will have been pretty keen to get back involved with day-to-day football,” he told the YEP.

“He can get back to doing what he does best; coaching and impacting players. I’m sure Daniel James will tell the players he’s good and they’ll buy into him and enjoy working with him.

“Someone asked me how he’d like being a number two, and I don’t see any issues; he’s humble and he’ll have lots to learn from Marsch.

“Whatever he was going to do next he would make a good impact, but this role feels like a pretty good fit for him.”