Jesse Marsch makes Marcelo Bielsa admission as he outlines his biggest Leeds United oversight

Jesse Marsch believes he didn't fully understand the scale of the Leeds United job before joining the club. The American head coach was appointed by the Whites in February 2022 after being chosen to replace the iconic Marcelo Bielsa in the Elland Road dugout.

Ultimately, though, Marsch lasted just under a year in the job, leaving West Yorkshire last season with the Whites flirting with the threat of relegation, which they eventually succumbed to, of course. Marsch did have moments of triumph during his time at the club and he notably helped the Whites to avoid relegation in his first few months in the job, with a dramatic win at Brentford on the final day of the season proving to be enough.

But, it's hard to say his time at the club was entirely successful, with his dismissal coming on the back of winning just four games last season. Almost a year has passed since Marsch was shown the door, with a loss at Nottingham Forest being the final straw, and after taking time out of the game he has decided he is ready to reflect openly on his time at Elland Road and where it might have gone wrong.

Speaking with Simon Jordan on his Up Front podcast, Marsch admits he underestimated some aspects regarding the size of the United job, while he also suggests the odds were stacked against him from the start.

“In a sense I did and didn’t understand the scale of the Leeds United job,” he told Jordan. “Unless you’re in the middle of it, it’s impossible to understand what the club really is. I had coached players that played for Leeds, I had followed the history of the club and I had been to Elland Road, and when you’re tasked with the responsibility of leading the club you know it isn’t a small responsibility. I wasn’t afraid, I was excited by the opportunity.

“When I arrived, I had to go through customs and they were looking at my passport, they saw who I was and the person checking my passport looked up at me and said, ‘you’re here to save us’. I insisted that it wasn’t just a one-man job and that we all had to work together.

"It was almost like a test and if I didn’t answer correctly, they wouldn’t let me in. I actually told that story to the team when I arrived.

“Normally when you watch players on television, they look like strong men in the right physical environment, but when you meet them in person you see that they’re still kids and young men at heart – Leeds was the opposite. When I arrived the players looked gaunt, tired and defeated.

"They looked like a group that was going to need a lot of help for them to be what I wanted them to be. The first feeling I had when I first met them was that it was going to be a much more difficult task than I had imagined.”

Marsch added: “When I went to Leeds, my analysts told me that within three years the club had an 84% chance of being relegated – the club knew that too. The Brightons and the Brentfords of the world are very unique, just look at Leicester. I knew when I went there that I was going into the lions’ den. I went because I liked the people at the club, and I believed that we had symmetry in the ways we thought about the game.

“I felt like Leeds was a club with a big heart, but I knew it was going to be a massive challenge. I didn’t even want to take the job at first. When they called me, I pleaded with them to keep Marcelo Bielsa. They just got to the point where they felt that they had to make a change.”