Leeds United boss Jesse Marsch's pre-Southampton press conference on team news, Kalvin Phillips, Raphinha, FC Barcelona and Joe Gelhardt

“I always heard it was a point a game because when I was with the US national team and I was an assistant, almost every American that we had in the Premier League was shooting for a point a game because they were always fighting relegation!

“But I don’t have a point total in mind.

“I’ve said a lot and I’ll say it again, the focus is on the daily work and just trying to prepare ourselves and to grow as a group and the more that we do that, then I think the more that we can fight for points.”

“Yes, absolutely.

“So there’s a few things...I think they’re both in contention to start, I think they’re both probably not fully 90 minutes fit but really close, I don’t think we can start both of them because then it’s already potentially two subs we have to make but I think that we will think very carefully, we’ll have a meeting today about exactly where they are.

“I’ve spoken with both of them already and they both are feeling good and they both are looking even better so we’re obviously really excited to have them in the group now and think they can both have a massive impact, a massive impact in our team.”

“When you play with two 6s, it’s, I think, always important that they can have a little bit different qualities and Mateusz is probably more of an 8 or a 10 than he is a 6 but he still can, I think, meet the standards for what we want to do specifically against the ball and then obviously with the ball he has some abilities to have solutions in tight spaces by moving with the ball a little bit, by creating, by finding a little bit of time and space for himself which can help create pause for the game for us.

“I think that he’s also shown that he’s committed to playing against the ball and learning our aggressiveness specifically in one v one duels defensively and he’s done really well, he’s won a lot of balls for us in pressing moments and then in counter-pressing moments and he’s intelligent.

“Even in the Norwich game, we put him up the field for a little bit in the 10 role when we took Rodrigo off and so he can still play an advanced position for us but I think he’s fitting into our team really well in in a little bit deeper position.”

“I’ve watched that game carefully, I’ve watched a lot of their their recent matches and I think that they’ve been a little bit unlucky to not do better in some of these matches. “I thought what they did against Norwich, with and against the ball in their last victory or one of their last victories was quite good and they’ve developed I think a few more tactical nuances for how they like to rotate and move their specifically 6s around in build up phases so we’ll have to be aware of some of those things.

“We’ll have to understand that when they do create some rotations, how do we want to attack those those positions in those moments?

“Obviously, we want to be effective in transition when we win balls but we have to also understand that one of the most important things is that we always have balance when we’re in possession so that we don’t allow their ball winnings to lead them into dangerous transition moments.

“We’ve talked already this week a lot about Southampton and what to expect and what we want to look like. It will be important.

“I’ve even talked a little bit with some of our front players, I like our front players to have a little bit of freedom sometimes to move around and find the game.

“But also we need to have a little bit more discipline to tactically and positionally be in the spots that we need, with and without the ball so that we can limit the opponent and also expose the opponent a little bit more so that’s been a talking point and I think all of those things will be really important against Southampton.

“It’s a similar philosophy that they like to play, it’s just the nuances of what they tried to tactically do in different phases and what we like to do.”

“I think that Dan, first of all, he will be a threat for any team when he plays along the back line in any of the front four positions because he’s so fast and his timing to get in behind is often very, very good.

“Trying to position him and have him understand how to fit in the game so that in the box, he can still be in really dangerous spots, that we can find him in dangerous spots, and that he can score more goals and have more assists.

“He’s also very aggressive when he gets into pressing moments and when he starts to attack the opponent so, you know, I’m just trying to get Dan more and more integrated into the system of play more and more and into the philosophy of what we’re trying to achieve and then I think still Dan has the flexibility to play any of the front four spots whether we play 4-2-3-1, whether we play 4-2-2-2 and and be creative, be effective, be aggressive and be dangerous.

“I like Dan, I sat with him today for like 45 minutes and talked about some of the tactics and the videos and he wants to learn, he wants to get better, he wants to commit all the way to playing this way and I think he knows that it can reward him as well.

“When you talk about the the striker position, certainly Sam Greenwood I thought played really well in Wolves off the bench and we kind of used him for a little bit as the striker position and then one of the wide 10s.

“And then we have Joffy. Joffy was a little bit injured in the Wolves game and wasn’t at 100 pet cent and certainly with me and with us in this process, we have to get him going more and more and more so, certainly, he will play a much bigger role now going forward.”

“It was a shame because we wanted him...we were considering him to start against Wolves and then the whole week he didn’t train because, well, first he was going to play against Man U in the 23s match and then we wanted to make intention for Wolves from the start or more minutes and then he just had this back spasm that prevented him a little bit from training.

“We got him training a little bit last week and then this week so that part’s been good and he has to play, you know.

“Young players have to play in order to improve and he has the quality to do so, so I’m not so concerned about it.

“I believe in him entirely and I know he’s going to get better and better and when we had a little bit of a test match on Friday, he played really well.

“We played basically the first team against the 23s for 45 minutes which Kalvin and Liam both played 45 minutes in that stretch and I think at the end of the 45 minutes it was 10-2 and Joffy played great in that moment.

“He had I think a goal or two and, you know, I mean it was a strong performance from the front four guys - they were incredibly powerful and direct and aggressive.”

“Speaking about this test match/little game we had, Raphinha was incredible in the 45 minutes.

“He, for me, is a massive talent, a massive talent and my challenge is, despite all of the things that are being said on the outside, is to have the type of relationship with him where he and I can focus on his development and him doing everything he can to help the team and to continue to get better while he’s here.

“I haven’t said a word with him about Deco, Barcelona, any of these things right? “And everybody knows it’s out there and, for me, as it should be because he’s a fantastic, fantastic player.

“I just want him to become the player that I know that he can.

“I think everyone sees here how talented he is, how committed he is, how hard he can run, how confident of a young man he is.

“Everyone here wants to enjoy the football that we can play with him and of course we want to convince him to stay as long as we can! Because he’s so good, really.

“He’s a fantastic player and a really good person.”

“Victor and I, we were having a scouting meeting next week because most of his scouts were out watching games during the international break.

“We’ve had some discussions already.

“I don’t know exactly how it worked when Marcelo was here but I understand that my role is to be the manager and then we have a sport director and a group of scouts that look at how to build within our team so I like to give profiles of the types of players that I like and then I like the sport director and the scout to work diligently to do their jobs and then present players and then we work through it together and we make decisions together because I find that it’s really important that when new players come, that everyone is fully aligned so that it’s not like, ‘well, this player belongs to this sport director or this scout or this manager or this.

“Even, I can tell you, the whole talk with with Brenden Aaronson, this all happened before I even came here.

“Now I know Brenden, I coached him and he’s an American and I think he’s a great player.

“But even when he came to Salzburg, Salzburg found him or knew about him before and came to me before he even came and then we worked together to think this was the right player for us so that’s how I like to work and that’s what I think is really important with scouting.

“In terms of the position, I think we have some talented players there and I think we have some flexibility with all the players that we have upfront.

“But, yeah, we might we might need to look to find another attacker or two and one specifically that is a number 9, that is a possibility.

“But we will discuss that more next week and maybe I can answer that question better next week as well.”

“I think in general we want to, with all the guys, we want to create a recovery path that is aggressive but but also smart and intelligent and give them the best chance to get to 100 per cent as quickly as possible so that will be the case with Patrick.

“For us, in the moment, he’s our player, we’re focused more on getting him ready for our season in our matches than we are for the national team.

“But I believe that the national team is really important for him and his development and ultimately that will have a big effect in a return for us as well.

“I’m a believer in the national teams, like when I was in Germany none of the coaches ever wanted to send their their players to the national team and I didn’t understand that because I played for the national team, I coached for the national team, and I know how valuable those experiences are and that they help men grow to be bigger in every way.

“there are obviously pitfalls with injuries and everything else when players are away but I want our players to have those experiences, have success and get better.”

“I guess I could go into some of that.

“He’s really a gentleman so when I was first there, he took me on a little tour of the facility and kind of talked about some of the things they were doing in the gym and then he allowed me in every meeting that they ever had as a staff and as a team and then obviously there were a lot of tactical discussions.

“Often I was a fly on the wall and would have some discussions later with him about things.

“Zsolt Low was also a part of that staff so that was his assistant who is now Tuchel’s assistant at Chelsea and the relationship that Ralph and Zsolt had was was really, really good, and that was fun to watch.

“One day, he had the whole staff over at his house for a dinner and he invited me at that time and he played piano for us so he’s a really good piano player.

“Like I said to you guys, he’s a gentleman, like through and through.

“He is a gentleman.”