It is looking extremely likely that Jesse Marsch will be the new manager of Southampton Football Club within the next 24 hours, but there are some who will say he is not much of a mark up on Nathan Jones, however they would be wrong.
When Nathan Jones arrived at Southampton he came with a reputation as a good coach but with the lingering doubt that he was a little too excitable for his own good and that is being kind to the now ex Saints manager.
Jesse Marsch also have a reputation for being a little excitable and hs been unkindly referred to as Ted Lasso , the also American football manager of the same name TV series about a coach from the USA coming to English football.
But Marsch's comparisons with Jones stop at the excitable mark, Jones had 7 years experience as a coach when he arrived at St Mary's, but all of those years had been in the lower leagues and aside 10 months at Stoke City in the Championship, all of the rest of his career was at Luton Town.
He rejoined Luton for his second spell with Luton now back in the Championship and he guided them to safety on the final day of the season, the second season saw him get a respectable 12th place followed by 6th last season.
But those 2 1/2 season remained his highest peak of his managerial career when he joined Saints, to be frank he had spent 7 years with just two clubs and most of that time in League 1 and 2.
Now his stats looked very good, but then again so did mine when i managed in Sunday football, so stats mean nothing unless they are compared at a like for like level and this is where i think the Saints board got a little bit blurred.
They put more emphasis on his record than at the level it was at and more importantly the level of player you get in the Premier League.
Quite simply Jones was out of his depth, some people are able to make the step up into the big time from the lower league as a manager, but you have to have a certain aura about you and command respect.
In short he was insecure and lacked the self belief and at Premier League level the players smelled this and knew it.
Jesse Marsch though is a different animal all together, look behind the veneer and the sneers that he got when he joined Leeds a year ago and you find a man with a lot of coaching experience.
After a long career as a player in the MLS with Chicago Fire and Chivas USA, he spent a year as an assistant coach with the USA national squad starting in 2010.
From there he became head coach with Montreal Impact in the MLS, after a 12th place finish in Montreal's first season in the MLS, though the club had been emphatic about their satisfaction with Marsch's work, the differences in coaching philosophies between Marsch and the management of the club led to an "amicable" split, after just one season.
After coaching in College Soccer, he returned to the MLS in 2015 as head coach at New York Red Bulls, he would spend three years there, winning MLS Coach of the year on one occasion and he left in 2018 with the best coaching record for the Red Bulls in their history.
It was to another Red Bull team he went this time Leipzig, as assistant to Ralf Rangnick and he would spend a season learning about football in Europe and helping lead the team to 3rd place in the Bundesliga as well as a cup final.
That saw him move to another Red Bull side, this time Salzburg, where Marsch led Salzburg to winning the double. The team won the Austrian Bundesliga by winning 68.75% of their games; 12 points ahead of second place Rapid Wien making Marsch the first American coach to win a top flight league title in Europe. The team also won the Austrian Cup 5—0 against Austria Lustenau.
During the 2020—21 season, Marsch led Salzburg to yet another cup win in a 3—0 win against LASK. Salzburg also won the Bundesliga, making it two doubles in a row.
In December 2021 Marsch left the club by mutual consent, his start to the season wasn't bad, but not up to the standard of the previous years,
He wasn't out of work long, joining Leeds in February 2020, he kept Leeds safely up , but that wasn't good enough for those running the club nor the fans after a poor start to this season.
Marsch's record at Leeds wasn't as bad as some would claim, he managed in 37 games, he won 11, drew 10 and lost 16, convert that to league points and that is basically 43 points over a season in the Premier League, that is 3 more than we got last year in our 15th place finish.
So there will be some who will not be exactly excited if and when Jesse Marsch is appointed, but he should not be looked at as another lower league coach in the mould of Nathan Jones.
He has learned his trade not in League One & Two, but in the top divisions of the USA, Germany & Austria and in the past year in the Premier League.
He would arrive as a coach with international experience and a good reputation and hopefully with the seld belief and confidence that comes from knowing that.
Yes perhaps he wouldn't be my first choice, but I would say one think his career gives him a lot better chance of saving us than Nathan Jones ever had.