Jesse Marsch defends not playing Georginio Rutter as Brentford frustrate Leeds

Leeds United boss Jesse Marsch defended his decision to keep club record signing Georginio Rutter on the bench in his side’s 0-0 home draw against Brentford. Rutter,

signed last week for £36million from Hoffenheim, was an unused substitute in Sunday’s frustrating Premier League stalemate. A disjointed match was crying out for Rutter to

make himself an instant Elland Road hero, but Marsch resisted the temptation to turn to the France Under-21 striker. Marsch said: “We thought about it. I could have done it.

I just wanted to integrate him in the right way. “I felt like the guys on the field, Willy (Gnonto) was close to pulling off a play, so I left him on, I thought Jack

(Harrison’s) performance was really strong. “When you have new players you always want to set them up to succeed, so in the end I decided to wait maybe one more week before

we unleash him.” Leeds created the better chances as their winless league run was extended to six matches, with Brentford goalkeeper David Raya making the game’s decisive

save from Gnonto’s angled second-half effort. Brentford had no efforts on target, but stuck to their game-plan – slow the game down and disrupt Leeds’ rhythm – and were

rewarded as they stretched their club record unbeaten league run to eight games. Marsch said: “This is sort of the play-book to coming to Elland Road. There are teams that

do this to be fair, it’s an intelligent way to manage coming here playing against a team that likes to play with tempo. “But my group and I have learned to not get

frustrated and stay focused on exactly the match. I thought we did that well today.