How Leeds United will look to 'move the needle' during their bittiest season ever

Negotiating it successfully will require shrewd judgements and close collaborations between the football and sports science departments.

With league tables ever more skewed towards the rich, the poor(er) have to make the most of every advantage, and Leeds’ this season could be that they have fewer internationals bogged down in Qatar than some of their rivals.

As a proud American, coach Jesse Marsch will certainly not celebrate an early exit for the USA, especially given they are in a group with England, but it could work in his club’s favour. Whatever circumstances are thrown up will present possibilities and pitfalls to deal with.

Although the problems are not unique to Leeds they are one of a handful of clubs whose season will be bittier than most.

To have a six-week hole in the fixture list where the first winter World Cup sits is a challenge for every Premier League manager. All will have players jetting off to Qatar to play in one of, if not the, most important tournaments of their careers. The most successful will fly home with around a week to get their minds and bodies onto the task in hand in freezing England at Christmas.

Whether things go well or badly, the mental challenge will be big too.

But it is not just those who go away coaches such as Marsch will have to worry about. Whilst Brendan Aaronson, Tyler Adams, Rasmus Kristensen, Mateusz Klich, quite possibly Diego Llorente, Robin Koch and/or Rodrigo (plus Pascal Struijk at a push) could be in their national squads, the remainder will have to strike the right balance between rest and maintaining sharpness.

It is an important one to get right. To nobody’s great surprise, a recent study found the Premier League suffers more from injuries than any other major European league, and stopping and starting like this will only increase the risk of more.

Marsch has told his Leeds players the six-week "break" will amount to a fortnight off followed by what the experiences of last month suggest will be four weeks of heavy gym work. With Manchester City and Newcastle United to play in the last week of December, Leeds cannot afford to go into those games cold.

Much is made of how demanding Premier League fixture lists are and if you play in Europe and for your country, they can be ridiculous. But Leeds only played 42 matches in all competitions last season, even if they did somehow suffer more injuries (1,542 days and 193 games lost according to Premier Injuries’ calculations) than any of their rivals.

Adding to this season's complications, they have already had one enforced month of inactivity, with no game from the start of September to the beginning of October due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the effect her London funeral had on policing numbers in Manchester, then a two-week Nations League hiatus.

Looking back on that unexpected period – at least the World Cup is in the diary – Marsch speaks of a relentless attitude his non-internationals can expect to be confronted with again soon.

"My whole approach is about maximising moments and being creative and innovative in that but also demanding we don't stop, that we're relentless in our mentality to improve," he says.

"We used the last break well, we did more 11 v 11 than we normally have because we hadn't had the games on the weekends.

"The lads have put a lot of work into the gym, which is one of the reasons why they're fit and strong. When we've done body mass indexes and these kinds of things, they're at levels they've never been at.

"Right now we feel good about their fitness levels, their concentration levels, their desire and their understanding of the way we want to play. We've moved the needle.”

From the October 2 visit of Aston Villa to the November 12 match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium which bookends this chunk of the fixture list, Leeds can expect to play nine matches in 41 days – a stroll in the park compared to Championship schedules but hard work when you play at Premier League, never mind Leeds United, intensity.

If they beat Wolverhampton Wanderers in the third round of the League Cup, Leeds’ first post-World Cup game will come a few days after the final, rather than on Boxing Day.

There has been talk of warm-weather training camps, with the United States unsurprisingly mooted given it is the homeland of Marsch and the San Francisco 49ers, the minority investors increasingly driving Elland Road policy, but one thing that will definitely not happen is a holiday.

"We will take two weeks and then get back to work," said Marsch. "There's a little bit of (uncertainty around) how the match against Wolves goes and are we in the Carabao Cup still, so that'll be a little bit of a factor in the timings, but we feel like two weeks is a good time for everyone to get away and then get back to work."