'Important for us' - Robin Koch details why pre-season will prove vital for Leeds United

Leeds United defender Robin Koch believes pre-season will prove to be an ‘important’ time for the squad to get to grips with Jesse Marsch’s methods. Marsch arrived at Elland Road in February with the task of keeping Leeds in the Premier League, which he achieved thanks to a final day victory at Brentford.

Given the pressure of the situation, though, the final few months of the season proved to be a difficult time for Marsch to fully stamp his philosophy on his new side. However, with a number of weeks on the training ground, and friendlies against various standard of opposition – including two Premier League teams – there is no better time than now to do so.

Leeds have already shown on their various social media platforms that ball work has been a key part of the first week of pre-season, something which perhaps would not have been the case under Marcelo Bielsa, who was far more fitness orientated. Speaking to LUTV, Whites centre back Koch believes that now the pressured situation of a relegation battle is behind them, it will be much easier to take Marsch’s ideas on board.

He said: “Of course, this is now a good time for us to prepare the new season. Even with the coach to get a little bit more time to improve some of our plays.

“Last season when he plays there was a lot of pressure as we needed results. Now we have more time to go through more things, his ideas of playing football. This is quite important for us now.”