Next Leeds United coach will live or die on details as problems mirror those of fellow Yorkshire club - Stuart Rayner

Because many of the issues Schofield is grappling with at League Two level are the ones that submerged Marsch at Elland Road.

So the solutions Schofield is searching for must now be the ones Marsch's successor tries to find.

Like Marsch did, Schofield is trying to explain to a sceptical fanbase why things are going better than results suggest.

Communicating with fans to try and bring them on the journey is important but in the end Marsch probably spoke too positively for his own good.

Once he made his comments about Leeds' "most complete performance" under him after January's 2-1 defeat at Aston Villa, every positive utterance only made his position worse. Positivity began to sound like propaganda.

You would like to say it is a lesson for Marsch's successor, and for Schofield, to learn from but really there only was one over-arching lesson from Marsch's time at Elland Road: you cannot win unless you... win. Doncaster’s victory over Tranmere Rovers on Tuesday was huge for them.

Marsch only had four league victories this season, and got sacked for it.

Modern coaches love to talk about "processes" – judging each game on how their team played it, not the final score. Hull City's Liam Rosenior is a disciple, so is Schofield. Marsch regularly spoke about wanting to get Leeds to a place where they could ignore results and league tables.

But that utopia does not exist. There is no science about football, or life. Sometimes you can do all the right things and still something goes wrong.

Leeds tended to undermine themselves with defensive errors at one end, sloppy finishing at the other.

At Leeds, where they attempt to keep well-attended press conferences manageable by limiting print journalists to two questions each, it is harder to explore issues in depth, even with a coach as open and talkative as Marsch.

But at Doncaster, even over Zoom, the format is more relaxed and Schofield is another engaging character.

Tuesday's answers were doubly interesting because they applied to two Yorkshire teams.

"I focus on the consistency of the performances," explained Schofield, a former development coach at Thorp Arch. "I talk a lot about the moments in games in both boxes – chances for, chances against. They define what the games are.

"Confidence and belief are a big thing and winning games does bring that.

"Something we're focused on as a club and me as a coach is to try and create that from within as well.

"Naturally I think we create anxiety ourselves. When things are going really well it's easy to have confidence, it's how do we remain confident, how do we have that true belief when we're not getting the results we want?"

With their side lagging behind in its promotion ambitions, Doncaster fans are growing ever more agitated, more so with the board but also the coach. When the away fans at the City Ground began chanting for Marsch to go on Sunday, it was perhaps the final nail in his coffin.

"You need fans with you, it's the way football clubs go in that (forward) direction," explained Schofield. "As a player I thrived on fans creating that positive energy.

"Fans respond to results and we need to get results.

"The results will define me and the football club ultimately but my focus has to be on performances. I almost can't control the results, the only way I can control it is to the coach the team to the best of my ability and allow them to believe in what we're doing – which they do, fully – and then focusing on the moments and the details which will win football games.

"Me maybe being the only one focusing on performances can hopefully get the results the fans can engage with.

"I know football and I know what I'm seeing from my team and there are positives in there.

"People might disagree but it's my way of seeing things and hopefully we get the results that will hopefully engage the supporters to kick us on with a positive energy."

One process Marsch did not get right was sharpening up the work in both boxes to make the most of the good things that happened in between. In Austria's Bundesliga, where he had great success with Salzburg, there is usually a second and third chance in front of goal, and mistakes are not as routinely punished. Where the margins are finer, in Germany and England, his teams' approach play has not had the same reward.

The margin for error is also greater in League Two, but Schofield recognises that issue.

"That's my challenge as a coach, to improve those levels," he said. "It might be something as simple as a body position to block a cross or a shot. This is what the top defenders in the world have, they're not just brilliant on the ball, they have those fundamentals. The attacking players can send a player away from the goal so the angle's more difficult to score.

"You try and improve a player's ability to read the game so they can arrive into the area when the ball comes in because it's not just by chance that these elite strikers and defenders win these moments more often than not.

"The higher you go up the league it's always down to the details."

The next Leeds United coach will live or die by those details.