Leeds boss Jesse Marsch hoping pre-season injuries don’t prove serious

Jesse Marsch hopes summer signing Luis Sinisterra and Adam Forshaw escaped serious injury as Leeds rounded off their Australian tour against Crystal Palace.

After beating Brisbane Roar 2-1 in the Gold Coast and losing 1-0 to Aston Villa in Brisbane, the Elland Road outfit ended their pre-season trip Down Under at the cavernous Optus Stadium.

Rodrigo’s second-half penalty put Leeds ahead in a feisty friendly in Perth, where Jean-Philippe Mateta turned home a Jordan Ayew ball on the break to secure a 1-1 draw in front of 33,919 fans.

But, while the absentee-hit Eagles fly home without any injury concerns, Leeds have to check on winger Sinisterra and midfielder Forshaw after their first-half withdrawals on Friday night.

“Luis Sinisterra had a little hamstring injury,” Leeds boss Marsch said. “We’re hopeful that it’s not too much, too long, too severe.

“Any time we have a hamstring injury I am totally dissatisfied because I think that’s reflective of everything that we do with them physically, so we’ll evaluate that and we hope that it’s not so bad.

“Adam Forshaw had Mateta kind of lean on him a little bit and tweaked his knee.

“We’re hopeful as well that that one’s not so bad, but we will get more information on it in the next days.

“I think we’ve had spirited matches in all of them here and that’s just kind of how our team plays. We only know full throttle and that’s a good thing.

“We try to bring out best every day, every game. Certainly there’s some emotion that goes on, some frustration with some calls and different things, tackles.

“The pitch wasn’t the perfect condition, but the mentality to try and get the most out of the game, to play at a high level, to play fast and a high level was really good.

“There were major stretches of the game that I thought we were quite good.”

Marsch looks set to be joined by a new assistant manager upon Leeds’ return to the UK, with Rene Maric – most recently with Borussia Dortmund – ready to join.

“More later this week but I know who Rene Maric is,” the American said.

Leeds are looking to sign a left-back and striker in the coming weeks, while Palace are bringing in defender Chris Richards from Bayern Munich.

“He is going to give us different options at the back,” head coach Patrick Vieira said. “He will give us competitiveness between players.

“I’m really pleased that an important player like that decided to come to Palace.

“I think we showed that we can attract players and when you look at the number of teams that were behind him and he decided to come to us, I think this is a really strong statement.”

Vieira has been without a number of first-team players in Australia, with Palace saying some were unfit and others “did not meet the entry requirements for Singapore or Australia when travel arrangements were made”.

“That wasn’t easy at all,” the former France international said. “We had to make some decisions and leave some important players behind.

“Obviously it’s not a perfect scenario as a manager, but we have to deal with it and I think we did it quite really well.

“If you’re looking at the three games that we played, I think we represent the football club really well.

“In the other side, it’s not the best preparation.

“Tactically, I think we show today that we still have a lot to cover, a lot of things that we need to improve and, compared to some other teams, we are a little bit behind, especially tactically.”