The Leeds United questions to ask as Marcelo Bielsa is replaced by Jesse Marsch - Tony Dorigo

The financial implications of a relegation are absolutely huge and, clearly, the club have decided that replacing Bielsa with Jesse Marsch was the best way to go.

You have to look at the recent results though there is no doubt that Marcelo has been hindered by so many different things.

But I just feel like the club would have also felt the ‘manner’ of the defeats of the last few games.

We kept putting in some good performances but then one or two bad ones and, unfortunately, it just extended and things didn’t seem to be improving.

With 12 games to go, this is what the club have now decided and we will find out whether they were right or wrong.

Nobody really knows just yet.

But you can understand why there has been such a huge outpouring for Marcelo Bielsa because he has been so integral in turning the club around.

When you look back three and a half years ago, the club was meandering nowhere in the Championship.

But then, suddenly, we were playing some football that I have not seen down at Elland Road for a very long time, if ever to be honest.

The style was very, very different.

There were question marks over whether Marcelo could do it in the Championship but, wow, he certainly proved those doubts all wrong.

I always say that a manager is managing a team to get the best out of them but Marcelo has turned some individuals into top-quality players as well and just about all of the players have improved.

Marcelo has done some remarkable things and there has never been a manager that has fitted in with the community like he has done as well.

He fitted with the city and the fans and connected in such a way that his leaving has caused an absolute outpouring of emotion, and rightly so. You can understand that.

But there is a hard business line to this as well and a decision has been made.

Would Marcelo have kept Leeds up?

For me, it’s a case of, when you look at some of the results and the way that we have been playing, you are just looking for something different or an improvement.

That’s the same with anything; you always want to keep going upwards and getting better. I don’t think this season was ever going to be about improving on the previous season’s ninth-place finish.

That was just absolute fantasy and I always thought this season was just about staying up, getting that base in the Premier League and on we go.

To that extent, to a point, we were doing okay.

We weren’t ripping up any trees but we suddenly just went on this slippery slope.

Clearly, losing the spine of the team to injury has been extremely difficult and then, I think, the teams that we are playing against have been very good against us and we have been found out to a point with regard to the man on man.

You look at the other teams and a lot of the centre-halves are so good at ball playing and that’s how you beat us because that’s where the spare man is.

They tear forward 30 or 40 yards and we didn’t seem to change.

Could you see an improvement? Could you see us keeping a clean sheet? As it went on, let’s be honest, defensively we were really struggling.

The boys were really struggling and that is why the club has done what it has done.

Something would have had to have changed for us to have been comfortable and stayed in the Premier League.

Whether Marcelo could or would have done that, we don’t know and that might have happened with Kalvin Phillips, Liam Cooper and Patrick Bamford coming back.

But we can conjecture as long as we want. The decision has been made and on we go.

Jesse Marsch has been brought in as Bielsa’s replacement and, to be honest, I didn’t know a great deal about him. I knew a little bit about him but, like everyone else, I have been doing some research into who this chap is exactly and, low and behold, I played against him in 1997.

He played for DC United in the States and Leeds United actually went on tour there. I think we played Chicago Fire, Columbus Crew and then DC United.

I only know because a fan told me although the fan did say he was in the pub for most of the holiday. But he did remember the game.

He sent me a clip and there was Jesse Marsch and there was me on the other side.

I can’t remember the game but, then, I look at his career and the way that he has come about.

Obviously he went to Red Bull Salzburg and then to Leipzig and, clearly, the style is the interesting one.

That is the thing that attracts me in that the high-pressing, high-energy style is what we have been playing.

But Marsch doesn’t have that man-to-man side to him and I do think that’s where the fit could work quite well although he has never been in the Premier League so it’s a manager coming into a scenario or a league that he is having to learn pretty quickly.

There’s upsides and some question marks as well but he seems a really positive guy.

He will get the players up and this is now a chance of impressing a new manager although I think that nearly all of the players at Elland Road will be sad that Marcelo has gone and so there will be a lifting up to do.

But, as I am sure Jesse Marsch will say and as I am saying now, the best way to do that is to keep that legacy going.

Keep winning games and keep Leeds United in the Premier League for Marcelo and for everyone else.

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