Jesse Marsch’s Leeds United FA Cup team news amid 'unique' week of issues and Patrick Bamford news

Speaking ahead of his FA Cup managerial debut, Marsch didn’t want to give too much away when it came to his team selection but vowed to put out a strong line-up at Cardiff City.

"It's a unique week, we have a lot of guys that we're hopeful they can turn around but have little issues,” he said.

“We want to put a strong team on the pitch. We know 6,000 fans are going down, I know the history of us losing 21 years ago at Cardiff. We’re excited about it.”

Marsch has welcomed Patrick Bamford back to training at Thorp Arch, although does not appear to anticipate the striker making his return in the FA Cup tie. The striker is enduring a second successive season of injury disruption with a range of issues cropping up since August but Marsch says he’s getting closer to a return.

Adam Forshaw, meanwhile, underwent a minor hip procedure earlier in the week and missed the West Ham draw. It was a complex hip problem that kept the 31-year-old out of action for almost two full years, but he returned to the side last season and made 26 appearances before a hernia operation curtailed his campaign. This season he’s played six times and he should be back in training soon according to his head coach.

“Patrick was in training today, that was a big step in the right direction,” said the American

"Not predicting he will be ready for the game but he's in training. Adam will probably not be available but should be back in training next week. Stuart Dallas had a follow-up op - they thought he had a little bit of an infection, they cleaned that out. The second operation he had because they felt there were some things limiting sensation in is knee. They cleaned it up and from that he picked up infection, so had another surgery. He’s feeling good and back home.

“Luis [Sinisttera] was on the pitch individually today looking really strong, sprinting and running. Let's see, we're hopeful at some point next week he'll be back in training.”