Jesse Marsch on Patrick Bamford's chances of playing for Leeds United at Leicester City

Jesse Marsch says he was presented with a "myriad of injuries" when he spoke to Leeds United's head of medicine and performance Rob Price for the first time, but there is a possibility Patrick Bamford could be involved in his first game, at Leicester CIty in the Premier League on Saturday.

Bamford trained for the first time on Wednesday after a succession of injuries himself, from a hamstring injury celebrating his goal against Brentford in December, to a torn plantar fascia in his most recent attempted comeback.

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After so long out, and with three games in eight days - Leeds also play Aston Villa and Norwich City - they could opt for a more cautious approach, however.

NEW COACH: Leeds United's Jesse MarschNEW COACH: Leeds United's Jesse Marsch
NEW COACH: Leeds United's Jesse Marsch
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"On Monday I met with the medical team and they introduced a whole myriad of injury situations to me. There's been a little bit fo a cycle here of players fighting through injuries and often playing through injuries and it means they've sometimes then picked up other injuries and it's put them in more danger of missing minutes.

"I've got to help guys recover as quickly as possible but not endanger them, not overload them to further be in danger, and then make sure we have a long-term vision in place

"It's 12 games, it's not three games or four, and I know we need points but we need to make sure we're getting stronger as we move along and not weaker.

"On that note, Patrick Bamford was in training today, Kalvin (Phillips) and Liam (Cooper) are both making progress, they won't be ready for the weekend but they're on the pitch working every day. And then we have a bunch of other guys who have missed a little bit of training this week and we're trying to evaluate the risk and reward of all the different players and how many minutes are appropriate for them to perform on Saturday.

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"We'll evaluate Patrick - will he be on the bench or does he need a few days? - but he's close.

"Diego Llorente was not in training today and he's questionable.

"There's a few others we're going step by step (with)."

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