Leeds United boss Jesse Marsch's pre-Arsenal press conference every word: Dallas and Cooper updates, Bamford plan

Jesse Marsch will be with us shortly and we will have all the news here.

Jesse takes his seat

“I want to start with Stuart Dallas. He had a successful surgery. It was a long surgery, five and a half hours, but they believe that the outcome was very positive. And, you know, they say it’ll be a long recovery, but they believe that he will have a full recovery. He has had something like 400 or 500 messages from fans, family and friends, we know that he’s loved and I think that this moment proved that more than anything. You know, I don’t want to speak for Stuart but but, you know, I’ve heard he’s been very appreciative of so many people reaching out and extending their concerns and their love for him. We all hope the absolute best for Stuart and and we hope that he is soon pain free and and back here in the training centers so that we can really start his recovery. And then on the other injury front, Patrick has been on the pitch so we remain cautiously optimistic with that and Tyler, Adam and Cree are all moving in the right direction. Liam Cooper trained today, Diego trained today so we should have other than those four-five guys we should have our full complement of players.”

“Yeah, I think you know, I think we can safely say it’ll be six months, but it could be longer and I don’t think anyone wants to rush him. I think the bone has to heal. And then they have to look at all the things like articular cartilage and the meniscus and which everything seems to be relatively intact so the ACL is intact. I’m not a doctor but a lot of the main structure of the knee is in place and then it’s just got to heal a little bit over time and and see how it reacts to more and more. And then, yeah, we all know Stuart is such a big part of the group. He’s such a fantastic person and player. I think he had the current ongoing record for most consecutive matches. So he’s also an Ironman. It’s motivation for us, but more importantly, I think it’s an indicator for the fact that Stuart will be backing stronger than ever.”

“I think so. He, again, I watched him on the pitch a bit today and he was moving really well. Doing a lot of ball work. Relatively active, dynamic and so I think, you know, we still have two and a half weeks, and we’ll go step by step but, but we are hopeful that we can get them into training by next week.”

“No, I don’t. I think, I guess the advantage is if you get the result then it puts a little pressure on the teams to play after. But going into the last match, I don’t think we even knew what the what the results were going in. And then if you lose, it can be a disadvantage. So the key is to, again, try to do everything you can to control your own results. That’s it. That’s my strategy in this whole process.”

“I actually think Liam will play. He was full in training today and felt good and so I think he’ll be available.”

What is his injury?

“They call it the fat tab, which I don’t know what that means. But it’s not a muscle. It’s something in his knee that is like a lubricant. But he’s he’s feeling good.”

“To try to win the game for sure. I think we respect Arsenal a lot. They have a lot of quality players and they’ve developed a lot over the past few years with Arteta. And we know that we’ve already gone over a lot of what we want the game to look like and what their strengths are and and so we know it’s a good team and it’s a version of Man City. They like to spread the field, they like to play with combinations, they’re very good passing team, they have very good movement so it’s about our ability to limit that and then our ability still to command the game with the ball and and be good at possession and then be good in transition phases. So one thing that was also disappointing in the Man City game, we’ve been relatively stable in defensive set pieces and then we give up two (goals). So we talked through that a little bit today and worked on that again on the pitch, but I expect us to be better with that in the next four games.”

“I think our group has a very strong belief in themselves. And since I’ve been here, we’ve tried to ease the pressure of every moment and enjoy the process more and still then be ready to go out and compete for everything on match day and execute a match plan that gives us a chance to pick up points. In many ways, even with the Man City game, I was very pleased with that process and and the way we played. But, you know, against the best opponents you have to be really, really good on the day, the margin of error is so thin, and we have to find a way to be razor sharp. So that’ll again be the emphasis going into this game against Arsenal.”

“My family’s been here. We still are in temporary housing so we haven’t moved into our permanent housing yet. But we will be doing that in the next couple of weeks. And I can only speak about the positivity that I felt in this community starting at Elland Foad. The way our fans treated us after the match against Man City I’ve never seen in football and the positivity we need right now. We need to be so aligned and I can say that the singular focus here at Thorp Arch is that everybody is doing everything they can to make sure that we control our destiny. And we need all the positivity from our fans like we saw at Elland Road, and I felt that in the community too, whether it’s having people that recognise me and come up and then support me and say how happy they are with the team and how excited they are for the future. And then there’s people that have no idea who I am, which I prefer more and then we have a really nice exchange, whether it’s at a coffee shop where the friendliness and kindness is amazing. So I’ve said it from day one that I love being here. I hope to make this my home for many years. And I love the club. I love the team. I love the area. We’re really enjoying ourselves and that gives me more and more motivation and desire to do whatever it takes to help this team achieve.”

“It’s all about the team. I knew when I came in early, it was an opportunity to evaluate everything for how to help it move forward. Not just to take over from the summer and try to do that. So I think that that part has been great. I’ve gotten to know the people here that work around the team and support the team. I’ve gotten to know the players, I’ve gotten to know the academy and so now I have a really good feel for everything that’s going on here and how we can move forward. But again, this is all about achieving our goal so that’s what every day is right now.”

“You don’t want anyone to have a big injury like that at anytime. Football is football and life is something else and so for me, it’s, you know, in that moment, we all just want to support Stuart and as a team this is bigger than any one man and this is just the way that it has to be. But we obviously all think about Stuart a lot and just want him and his family, we want him to be healthy. We want him to be strong. We want him to be back living his life and we want to support him in that process. And that’s how that works for me. We will miss him but we’re thinking about him.”

“I think probably so. We’ve asked Dan James to play a lot in that position, and I know that it’s not ideal. We will still probably need him at times to play there. And I think he has developed a lot more flexibility in his game over the past couple of years because he’s been asked to do different things and play different roles. If we can get Patrick back and sharp and fit that will be helpful for sure. And then I’ve always been thinking about how to use Joffy more and more and we have used Rodrigo sometimes at that position but I think he is more like a false 9 or 10 or operates better when there’s another striker there with him so it hasn’t always been perfect in terms of trying to get the most out of every game plan but the guys have given everything no matter what role has been asked of them. That’s for sure.”

“My goal from the beginning is to have flexibility with positional players playing different positions and formations and everything and we’ve gotten better and better with understanding principles so then we can we can apply it to tactics a little bit more. Each opponent is a little bit different and requires something different against the ball, with the ball, the whole bit. The good news is we are at a point where we are clearer and clearer and we can use tactics and formations I think to manipulate opponents and match plans a little bit more. The key will be that the players are clear when they step on the pitch and that they can play their best. I feel like we are getting there and it will be a test for that again on Sunday.”

“Against Man City, I felt like we lacked a little bit of poise when we won the ball. In build up phase we were quite good and we were able to move the ball around and manipulate the opponent and make them defend at certain moments. But a lot of times when we won balls in transition we we gave it back and maybe rushed actions a little bit. So, for me, the key is to understand what moments that we need to be very vertical and attack immediately and what moments we need to have a little bit more patience to control the game a little bit more in possession so we’re still working on that. That’s what I think I said one press conference, the 100 to 70 message so we’re continuing to work with our ability to slow ourselves down and especially in attacking moments and finish off plays”

“I think it’s more and more after results and maybe things going forward against us to have emotions attached with what’s happening but by the time we get to work and get on the pitch and start talking about what we want the weekend to look like for the next match, there’s clarity and there’s not a lot of tension at that point. It’s normal, I think, for everybody to have emotional responses to different results that don’t goour way or do go our way. But I think the work and the focus on the work here has been phenomenal and it’s been a real strength of ours so far.”

“That’s what it is- it’s too eliminate the emotion and to continue to focus on our ability and discipline to have concentration for what’s important to us. I know that of course from a media perspective that people like to write about the emotion of football and what’s happening in the momentum here or this or that. But when you’re in this business for a long time, you know that the job is about preparing to perform and the focus and the ability to do that and to eliminate the things such as media that get in the way of us doing our job. But we have a lot of good pros here, we understand that and that is clearly my approach to every day. And I think that the players respond to that and they understand it.”