Jesse Marsch press conference highlights: Leeds United boss issues team news

When I knew I wanted to be a coach, I thought I would be about tactics and competitiveness. I care for people, for me this is a people business. In a stressful time, we invested everything we had, along with that comes a real affection and for the situation and a fondness that we did it together. We achieved our goal and everybody sacrificed everything we had. When I see the mural of Kalvin it’s hard not seeing him here everyday. Now I just have to do it a little bit more from afar and see him in an ugly colour of blue.

I believe our strongest line up is stronger than last season

They will dictate that more than anything, if Patrick is fit then Patrick will play a lot of minutes but I also have to be cautious that he hasn’t played a lot in the past 10 months, and be conscious not to kill him early on. Joffy the more he pushes himself and takes advantage of the situation he’s going to gain more minutes. That’s where you talk about healthy competition and guys pushing each other and I think we have that in our squad now.

Brenden’s work ethic is some of the best I’ve ever known. The league demands the best from people and it’ll demand the best from Brenden. Coming from wide situations and moving into the middle it suits him a little more physical. He’s intelligent enough to play across our front four, he’s clever in tight spaces and good around the goal.

I’ve still had contact with Kalvin. Last week I drove through the city and I saw the mural of Kalvin and it got me a little emotional. Not having him in our kit is not so easy to accept. Moving forward it wasn’t going to be replacing Kalvin with one or two players but continuing the process of how we want to play. A lot of the players we have here have adapted more and more. Tyler Adams and Marc Roca who they are, fits really well for where we’re at right now. Adam Forshaw has adapted too. You could include Darko and Archie who could see playing time in that position too.

Rene [Maric] and I share a lot of education and foundation of what we want as a playing model. Frankie Schiemer has been in this week too.

We have Joffy to support him, I think they can play together. Rodrigo can support him too.

It’s been a huge week for him, he looks great, he looks fit, he looks sharp. The good thing as well is now having Patrick closer to 100%, we’ve been able to work tactically through what we want him to look like. I believe there’s a lot of room for improvement and that’s our goal to help him. He looks great, he’s psychologically incredibly excited and I know we have a great player on our hands. Is he at 100%, probably not but he’s close.

They’ve changed a little bit to four in the back, they’ve played Podence in the striker position with Jimenez being out. I think their manager is very intelligent and they have an incredible player pool, really intelligent. They fit together, defend really well and then they can still unbalance you with the way they move the ball. I think we can get an edge of set-pieces, a big challenge one we’re excited for.

You can call it stress, pressure, the league is so good and it demands the best out of you. I’m just totally focused on getting our team ready to have a good first step in the season.

I think there’s an argument to have a more established goalkeeper as a back-up. Marcos Abad has created a really good environment with the goalkeepers. Anyone we bring in we have to be very clear, there can’t be any friction.

When we’ve made plans he’s carried them out and invested heavily. Right now we’re trying to be prudent. We were very sure in every transfer we attacked in this window - now we’re evaluating. I think every manager wants more money that’s not a big secret. Good players make good managers, not the other way round, we really like our team and we’ll be intelligent with how we add in the next weeks.

I love there’s been an appreciation of diversity in our sport. When you become a manager in this business you have to have an open mind and you have to love working with different kinds of people. Whether we take a knee or not, we have a massive appreciation for all the differences people have. In general this league is at the forefront of so many things, the LMA is an amazing established organisation, I think the player pool and the unions and togetherness, how they think, taking the knee was the right thing.

I don’t want to go too much into the transfer situation, but we’re trying. We’ve done a really good job with the guys we’ve brought in so far. We’re being really precise with what we need in the next steps. We have time, I think we’ll make one addition next week and we’re still looking at what’s out there.

We know we lost two great players but that allowed us bring in 6 or 7 players that help us play the brand of football we want. We’ll use the situation to make us stronger, I really believe that

We’ve been able to invest heavily in tactics, set-piece ideas, what we want our environment to be like from a team perspective. We’ve made some adjustments at Thorp Arch to be more efficient and clean in what we do. I think we have made incredible progress in the last six weeks. We’re going to see a better version of what I would like us to be on matchday. Additions important for that but players that have been here have had more time to work intensively and minutely on the details.

Dan James is suspended. He will be playing 90 minutes with the 21s tomorrow night, by his request. Liam Cooper has had an Achilles issue from his off-season programme. This week he’s finally been on the pitch doing individual work. We hope by next week he’ll be in team training. Firpo ahead of schedule, but he’s still probably 2-3 weeks away from match eligibility. Forshaw made good progress with a knee-MCL issue, but we’re hopeful he’ll be training next week. Ayling made progress and ahead of schedule. We’re trying not to pressure him too much. He’s been on the pitch, hopeful he can be in training soon. Luis on the pitch today and getting closer to his top speed, hopefully available weekend after next.