Leeds United still digging as boss fires 'lethal' warning with 'vital' Whites admission

Marsch's side found themselves in a deep hole heading to last weekend's Premier League clash at Liverpool having gone eight games without a victory, six of which had ended in defeat. A haul of just two points from a possible 24 left March facing intense questions about his job and Leeds second-bottom in the Premier League drop zone but United stopped the rot in style with a 2-1 triumph at Anfield.

The win propelled Leeds four positions up the Premier League table into 15th place but Marsch has been keen to stress the importance of backing up last weekend's Reds result with another three-point haul against Saturday's 14th-placed visitors Bournemouth.

The contest marks United's last home game before the six-week break for the World Cup and forms the start of a busy week which also includes Wednesday night's Carabao Cup trip to Wolves and the visit to Premier League hosts Tottenham Hotspur next Saturday afternoon. Leeds now sit one point clear of the drop zone and with a game in hand but Marsch says United's next week will be crucial to the overall campaign.

"I'm still kind of in the same place," warned Marsch, pressed on the impact of the Anfield success. "Obviously it was a good win, but it's also kind of frustrating that we perform like this in certain games and then we've had too many points and games slip away against other opponents.

"It's a little hard for even me to understand and appreciate that moment because I'm still thinking about the fact that we should be further up the table. We should be further along in our process, but we're not. Obviously, there's joy that we get a result like that, but also concern and frustration that we haven't done more in other moments.

"My mind right after the match was squarely on making sure that we're prepared for this weekend. I said last week at the press conference, I was tired of losing and tired, tired of being in a situation we have to dig ourselves out of. We're not out of that yet, we're still there, but the only way now is to get the result on Saturday."

Marsch added: "I don't feel in any way that we're out of the phase where things weren't going our way and where we weren't getting results. Even though we only have like two weeks left in this moment of the season, I think it's vital for us to get as many points out of the next two matches as possible so that we can go into the break feeling like we're coming back and we're going to be strong."

Sizing up what he expected from Bournemouth under interim boss Gary O’Neil, Marsch warned: "Bournemouth, in general, I know that they haven't gotten a lot of results lately. But if you look at their metrics, they're actually improving as a team and I think they're more and more in matches. We believe that they are very lethal in the counter attacking situations and so they defend very hard, they defend sometimes a little bit deeper.

"They sometimes like to press a little bit higher, but then get into a deeper block and they're very intensive in some of those defensive moments and they're very quick to get into the counter and it showed in the Tottenham match and a lot of their matches lately.

"I think the manager has done a great job of taking them out of a moment early in the season where they looked like they were in trouble, to making them stronger and making them clear on exactly what their playing model is. Who they play and exactly how they play, they have some variability, they’ve played five in the back and defended five in the back, sometimes they build with five but defend more with four. So we've had to prepare for a few different things. We know that in the end, we have to know them but we have to be ready to perform at our best. that's our big focus this week, knowing the opponent but then making sure that we're ready to be at our best."