Leeds United: Jesse Marsch looking for fringe players to deliver in League Cup

Even with the element of a Yorkshire derby, Premier League side at home to League One team for a place in round three of the League Cup is hardly a fixture demanding attention but such is the way fans are taking to coach Jesse Marsch’s style of play, Elland Road is sold out tonight.

The Leeds crowd is used to intensity and eagerly feed off it.

When they hosted Barnsley behind closed doors in the 2019-20 Championship it was perhaps one of the most intense atmospheres produced with allegedly no fans in the ground.

Gerhard Struber’s Reds matched the intensity Bielsa always demanded from the Whites and the league positions only added to it as the visitors tried to scramble out of the relegation zone, the hosts to secure promotion. Add in an unusually vocal director’s box and it made for an atmosphere rare at that time.

So throw in 36,000 supporters and more high-profile rivals in Chelsea, and Elland Road was rocking to the aggressive, successful football seen on Sunday.

Marsch’s last job was in Germany’s Bundesliga, renowned for the passion of its fans, but it has nothing on where he works now.

“The fan culture of the Bundesliga is amazing because the identity of the fans and what they mean to the club is prevalent in every match but come on – this is amazing,” he said.

“I don’t want to create a competition but there is a very clear identity to this club, a very clear history, and it’s very important we play in a way that our fans appreciate and want to see. It’s an entertainment business and we have to entertain our fans with the kind of football they demand. We’re trying to do that every day.”

That means when the team changes, as it will this evening, the approach must stay the same.

“Going down to Brighton (in the Premier League on Saturday) won’t be easy, they’re really well coached and a good team as well (so) against Barnsley we’ll probably rotate a few guys and we need to see performances from the entire squad that represent clarity and intelligence so we can now move everything on in the direction we want to go – with every single player,” said Marsch.