It’s about time the American got the boot out of Leeds. Leeds United have finally sacked Jesse March as the club has completely collapsed after an impressive start to the season to now sit just one place above the relegation zone.
You hate to see people lose their jobs, and especially one who was a “trailblazer” in their specific field, but sports is a cut-throat business. And, if you can’t get the job done, there’s always a replacement waiting in the wings to do what you could not.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened to Jesse March.
After being brought in as the replacement for the legendary Marcelo Bielsa as Leeds were heading towards a painful relegation under their beloved Argentinian manager, Jesse March narrowly was able to keep the last champion of the old First Division in the Premier League by playing a more conservative version of Bielsa-football.
Personally, I always thought that March and Leeds were a good fit given how similar March’s style of football was to Bielsa’s, while March’s energic personality was also great for players and fans to rally around during those troubling times. But, it was a good fit to a point.
What do I mean? Well, unless Leeds’ ownership was willing to fork out hundreds of millions of pounds to completely revamp the squad (which they weren’t), there was only so much March’s energetic demenaur and fast-paced football tactics could help a championship level squad avoid the drop. There’s a reason why Leeds has been in two consecutive relegation battles with two different managers, and it’s not down to the managers being bad.
Sure, Bielsa and March are not what one would call “the cream of the crop” of football managers (even though Bielsa is a legend in his own way) as one would say Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, Carlo Ancelotti, Antonio Conte, Erik ten Hag, Diego Simeone, Louis Van Gaal, etc. are, but they definitely have the managerial chops to contend in the Premier League on better teams.
They have simply been hamstrung by a squad that is a championship level and an ownership group that is frugal with its investments compared to the rest of the relegation-fighting teams (ex: West Ham, Nottingham Forrest, Everton, Southampton).
So, why am I saying that Leeds “finally” fired Jesse March? It’s because his message and the style of play introduced by Marcelo Bielsa has gone stale and will take down the club if the ownership didn’t make a change now.
Having yet to win a game in the league since the World Cup break ended (their last win was against Bournemouth back on November 5th) and seeing the rest of the club’s relegation rivals make up serious ground on them, the club’s ownership sweating bullets over the prospects of the club’s survival and pushed them into firing March now.
Plus, practically only buying American players in the transfer market has also not helped March’s cause as even though I’m in favor of bringing in as many young American footballers as possible in the Premier League/English football (I’m an Amercian myself, after all), the truth is that there’s a very select number of helpful American talents for the situation Leeds finds themselves in.
Yes, new signing Weston McKinnie might end up being a great player for Leeds, but his experience is in Serie A with title-challengers Juventus. How is an inexperienced, 21-year-old “prospect” (for lack of a better word) that only has experience in challenging for league titles going to be immediately impactful in a relegation battle?
Wouldn’t it have been more prudent to bring in more experienced players who have helped other clubs stay up before? I think so.
And this is the kind of stuff that will get managers with limited job flexibility fired (i.e.: people like Jesse March).
We’ll have to see who Leeds brings in for the interim role, but they better be good and turn around this poor run of form or else this club is going to be relegated.
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