Leeds boss Jesse Marsch admits he deserved a booking for ref rage at Brighton

Leeds boss Jesse Marsch admitted he tried to influence the performance of referee Michael Salisbury with his petulant touchline behaviour during the 1-0 Premier League loss at Brighton.

Marsch was shown a second-half yellow card at the Amex Stadium after slamming the ball into the turf and sarcastically applauding the rookie match official, who was taking charge of just his fifth top-flight fixture.

The American was animated from the outset on the south coast, regularly leaving his technical area and, at times, angrily berating the officials, prompting a ticking-off from fourth official James Linington and complaints from the home bench.

He had no objections to eventually being booked – around 15 minutes from time after Pascal Gross had claimed what proved to be Albion’s winner – but insisted he will never be a manager who “sits there and takes it”.

Asked if the caution was merited, he replied: “Yeah, absolutely. I thought my behaviour at that point deserved the yellow card.

“But I always say, when you don’t believe that you’re getting a performance out of the referee I think you have two options: to sit there and take it or to escalate your behaviour to try to make a point to see if you can affect the way decisions are getting made.

“Sometimes it works for you, sometimes it works against you. But I’ll never be a guy that just sits there and takes it, that’s not my style.

“We had him (Salisbury) as the fourth official against Chelsea (a 3-0 win last weekend) and I like his demeanour.

“I just think he didn’t have the best performance today. I know I let him know that maybe a couple too many times.”

Leeds were second best for much of their visit to Sussex and, having been fortunate to be level at the break, fell behind