Jesse Marsch on Leeds United players 'freestyling' and referee display in Brighton loss

It was the first loss of the season for the Whites, who were clearly second best to their hosts in the first half and had just started to build some momentum after the break when they conceded. Pascal Gross finished off an attack with a goal that proved the difference, despite some late pressure from Leeds.

Marsch was pleased that his side showed improvement after the break.

“I thought Brighton was much more on top of the game, forcing mistakes from us and making it difficult but second half I thought it was different,” he said.

"Second half I thought we pushed them more, we played more in their half and we were not creating as many clear chances as I would have liked us to, but certainly we changed the way we played. We changed our strategy, and we pushed the game more and listen, maybe Luis' [chance] goes in or we have another little bit of a moment where we're a little bit cleaner, clearer when we're in the box and we make a final action, we get the lead and maybe the the feeling in the game is totally different.”

The defeat came six days after an impressive 3-0 victory over Chelsea at Elland Road but Marsch was keenly aware of how difficult the Brighton game would be.

“After Chelsea, there was a lot of fanfare on the performance, but what this league is, is every match is a little different. Every opponent is a little different, but every opponent is very, very good. And I think that Brighton, certainly in the first half, really strategically managed the match much better than we did and then made it difficult for us to find the game at all, but I thought second half again that we did okay.”

What made life more difficult for Leeds was an inability to stick more rigidly to what they planned to do, which reminded the American of last season.

“It was following the match plan a little bit clearer – we had guys kind of freestyling again, against the ball and with the ball, and so still staying true to the principles and the tactics in the match plans, which was a talking point a lot last year,” he said.

"We would build match plans and ideas, and the game would start and the emotion of the game would take over and the opponent is good and then we wouldn't play the way we wanted it.

"Often at halftime, we would say hey, stick to the plan. Here's what's good, here's where we can find space, here's what we can exploit and then typically we had better performances in the second half. So that was a little bit like that today.”

Marsch’s frustration was evident throughout the game and it wasn’t entirely directed at his players. Referee Michael Salisbury eventually showed a yellow card to the Whites boss for his behaviour on the touchline.

“I thought my behaviour at that point deserved the yellow card but when you don't believe that you're getting performances out of the referee, I think you have two options - to sit there and take it or to escalate your behaviour to try to make a point, to see if you can affect the way that decisions are getting made. Sometimes it works for you, sometimes it works against you, but I'll never be a guy that just sits there and takes it. That's not my style.

"I didn't think it was a good [refereeing] performance. But again, I don't think ours was a good performance either so this can happen. But we had him as the fourth official against Chelsea and I like his demeanour, I just think he didn't have the best performance today. I know I let him know that maybe a couple too many times.”