Leeds United's votes of confidence are in - now the time has come to start delivering

Whether everyone will see Leeds United accepting a £20m Leicester City bid for the winger, then telling him later in the day they wanted him to stay and sign a new contract, that way is a moot point but one person who has undoubtedly had a clear vote of confidence last month was Marsch himself.

Normally it is the last thing a manager wants for his chairman to say in public how much he believes in him. A P45 is often not far behind.

But Andrea Radrizzani and his fellow board members have not backed Marsch with words, but actions. And cash.

Max Wober, a player Marsch had at Red Bull Salzburg, came early in the transfer window before Leeds broke their club record to sign Georginio Rutter for £35m. Marsch's former team-mate and assistant Chris Armas joined the coaching staff and another American he knew plenty about, Weston McKennie, came on loan from Juventus on deadline day eve.

It is not true to say football club boards do not make moves like that for coaches they do not believe in, but sensible ones certainly do not.

Even the most patient investors, though, expect payback. Sunday at Nottingham Forest would be a very good time to start.

As Marsch has been at great pains to stress whenever he has passed a microphone, much has been good about Leeds recently. Performances have largely been, and there has only been one defeat in seven matches.

But boards do not shell out eight-figure sums to see their team play better than the opposition, watch them draw, or even knock lower-league teams out of the FA Cup. They do it for Premier League wins, and Leeds have not had one since Bonfire Night.

"Now a lot of responsibility falls on myself, the staff, our team,” acknowledges Marsch. “We're now really positioned to develop and become good, and once we become good, to focus on becoming great.

"The transfers we've made in the last two windows have been fantastic, we have real options. There's a lot of strength in quality in the squad and a lot of good people who care about what we're doing here and I think we're developing a team our fans are going to be really proud of.

"I'm excited and motivated just because now I can really see the potential of what we can become.

"The table's very tight which makes the match against Nottingham (three points ahead from a game more) very important for us but I think we've actually finally created a process where we're focusing on our development, our performance, our confidence and our belief. That's led to us playing better.

"Now it's time to pick up some more results."

Rather than be worried about whether Harrison is mentally in the right place to face a club who have taken transfer market trolley dashing to new heights since returning to the Premier League in the summer, Marsch thinks recent events have shown the 26-year-old how loved he is at Elland Road and that “Jack is more confident than ever about his place at our club.”

"In the 11th hour something came from Leicester,” explains Marsch. “We'd been talking with Jack for a while about renegotiating his contract and it's gone well but stalled at different moments. We'd spent a lot of money in the last couple of transfer windows – I think very wisely.

"When all the powers-that-be could get together we had discussions and once it all came together it's clear we wanted Jack to stay, Jack wanted to stay and that's why he's still here.

"We are visiting getting that contract extension finalised because I think Jack has earned it and he's an important guy in our squad but it created some complication because he only had 18 months on his contract when this came up.

"It was a little bit of a chance for us to solidify how we really feel about Jack and how he feels about us."

Marsch, who saw Mateusz Klich and Diego Llorente leave in January (Joe Gelhardt went on loan too), explained his attitude to departures.

"What I can do as the coach, the leader of the team, is just confess what our plan is, how we feel about that individual and be very clear on what the future looks like," he says.

"If they can understand and believe the things I tell them they can make educated decisions on what's best for their lives and their careers.

"I find if you have open dialogue and that kind of relationship, even if you lose a player occasionally, you're losing them for the right reasons."

January ended with the strongest Leeds squad since their previous spell in the Premier League.

"Maybe in the future at the back we could use one more player but we said (to the players) when the window closed everyone who's here now is here for a reason – because we believe in them,” asserts Marsch.

"Our squad is lean but strong. We didn't want 25 outfield players and five goalkeepers (a different approach to Forest’s), we wanted to have have 19/20 and three.

"Now we feel strongly we have real quality, real weapons, players that understand what we're trying to do and can commit to it."

The time has come to deliver.