Life comes at you fast, but football comes at you faster. Less than a month ago Jesse Marsch was sat in his comfy lounge-gear blissfully unaware that Luke Ayling was actually known as ‘Bill’ and that the likes of Sam Greenwood, Charlie Cresswell and Kristoffer Klaesson were about to dig him out of a hole the size of the Grand Canyon. At times over the past four weeks I dare say he’ll have wished he was still in such a serene and idyllic place.  Each of Marsch’s four games to date explain exactly why, but then that’s Leeds United, and when it gets under your skin, there’s precisely nothing you can do about it.

If the international break means Marsch can finally allow himself to breathe after a first month in the job which has mainly been fire-fighting on an epic scale, he will reflect most definitely on a job well done, but equally one which could have been an outright disaster were it not for the cavalier spirit and sprinkling of good fortune which has largely deserted Leeds this season. Someone possessing Marsch’s meticulous strategising won’t hide from the fact that even the last two games that Leeds won hardly went to plan, and you can’t rely on Leeds United’s penchant for the absurd to drag you through every single game.

We are still conceding too easily, squandering good chances and there were times in both the last two games when Leeds looked down and out. Okay, against Norwich that only lasted two minutes, but WE ALL REMEMBER HOW DARK THOSE TWO MINUTES WERE.

Given that it was a combination of Raphinha and Joe Gelhardt who pulled the rabbit out of the hat versus Norwich, and they were nowhere to be seen at Molineux last Friday where a totally different band of heroes took centre stage, you might suggest this presents a fairly healthy picture of where this Leeds United squad is. But then you remember the chaos that came before Luke Ayling’s injury-time winner, the four injuries and wonder how on earth we managed to win it.

Little of what happened will have been out of the Jesse Marsch book of tactical mastery. And that’s not to downplay his methods, application or impact so far, it is merely to highlight that this football club has ‘something’ that has dumbfounded critical football analysts since 1919 and which, when you least expect it, can enable players who, in the context of a Premier League fixture against a top-eight side in which you are 2-0 down at half-time, have barely met before, to summon something vaguely describable from their muscle memory and carve out the most unlikely of results. That’s a remarkable property to have, and doubtless Marsch has not enjoyed it before at any of his previous clubs. Does that change your thinking now that you have two weeks in which to finally instil your fabled methods and principles in your new team? It probably should do, because if he hadn’t realised it before replying to Victor Orta’s voicemail a month ago, for better or worse, there is no other football club like this one.

Marsch now has two, trouble-free weeks to assess these past four games, if he can find the black box amid the wreckage to tell him exactly what happened. He also has time to let his players rest, to recover from new injuries, existing injuries and injuries nobody has told him about yet because there are that damn many of them. And he has time to get to know his players, to build trust, build relationships, learn nicknames and gather the many positives from the Norwich and Wolves wins to galvanise a plan for the final assault.

Without doubt this international break has come at a very welcome time. I think we all had to step away from the madness, and the fact that we could do so with six shiny new points and that we might be able to enjoy an almost fully-fit squad when we come out the other side, makes this feel like the first international break I have ever afforded a nodding acknowledgement, never mind welcomed with open arms.

As we know now, Marsch was never going to risk the fitness of Kalvin Phillips and Liam Cooper against Wolves, and their appearance on the bench was effectively a cleverly-orchestrated psychological stunt. And it definitely worked, and even if I was shouting “why is ‘he’ coming on?” every time we were forced to fill another gap in the bursting dam through another unlikely source, having Kalvin on the bench and on the scene, somehow made the victory even sweeter.

Clearly, Kalvin’s presence in and around the dressing room has a stimulating effect on everyone. And seeing him riling the opposition bench, sprinting across the pitch after the winner and leading the post-match celebrations with the crowd, added an extra sheen to an already intoxicating evening, and made everything seem okay in the world.

It appears Kalvin is being readied specifically for these last eight games and it could yet be proven that Marsch also promoting Kalvin to his much-discussed ‘leadership group’ is a stroke of genius. There are strong arguments for the inclusion of all seven members of the group, even if having seven leaders feels to me a touch excessive, given it accounts for a third of the first-team squad, and anyone not included as a ‘leader’ might therefore feel a bit left out. I’m self-employed and have worked on my own for the last 11 years, so what the hell do I know about leadership?      

Anyway, it works, and it says a lot about the formidable and unique nature of the squad that so many strong characters are able to stand up and be counted, and yet you know there are no clashing egos and nothing but a unified goal to continue this magical journey together.

So enjoy the next two weeks and come back refreshed; manager, team and fans. With time and space and clarity, we may see a bit more of what Jesse Marsch is trying to do at Leeds United, and we should see a few more familiar faces in this Leeds United side. And crucially, we might see a ‘must-win’ game on the horizon and believe that we actually can. Hands up who could honestly say that before Norwich?

I’m sure this short break looked like a mirage in the distance when Marsch was watching his players trudge off after the 3-0 defeat to Villa, but it was an important base camp he knew he could gain a lot from, and if anything, we possibly arrive at it in better shape than he expected. It may have been stressful getting here, but a lot of that stress has now gone, to be replaced by a heaven-sent calm. And on the other side of the storm, without panic and anxiety, and hopefully with a more-rounded battle plan, the Leeds United we know and love have a much better idea of what they need to do.