Jatt talks about building trust with his players, what Liquid need to do to solidify their place back at the top of the LCS

In the eyes of many fans and analysts, Team Liquid have had a surprising start to the 2021 LCS Spring Split. After the team won the 2021 Lock In tournament, it made sense that people had them set as a definite top-three team. But after four weeks, the star-studded roster is tied for fourth place with a 7-5 record.

This past weekend yielded better results for Liquid after they took down FlyQuest and Immortals. Most people agree, though, that they haven’t lived up to the sky-high expectations that the general League of Legends community placed upon them before the split began.

Not many people can explain why Liquid are struggling as much as they have been. But the team’s head coach Joshua “Jatt” Leesman talked with Dot Esports about the team’s recent issues and why he believes that this squad will still fulfill their potential when the playoffs roll around.

The 33-year-old discussed Liquid’s current problem this split and how they must learn how to transition early-game leads into even better late-game performances. In fact, Liquid have one of the best early games of any team in the LCS with a monstrous average gold difference of 1,879 at 15 minutes, according to Oracle’s Elixir.

“If you go back and look at the way we lost a lot of our games, all of them—except for one—were in winning positions,” Jatt told Dot Esports. “So right now, the biggest thing that we need to improve on is how to close out games from winning positions, because we’re getting into [them] pretty reliably.”

But Liquid have an unfortunate habit of making crucial mistakes in the later stages of their matches, whether its a player getting caught out by themselves or the team finding themselves on the wrong end of a skirmish. Jatt believes that Liquid should’ve gone 3-0 this past weekend, especially since they had an even more explosive early game than normal in their match against TSM. But several mistakes cost them dearly.

In the end, Jatt and rest of Liquid still have some growing pains to get through as a unit. They’ve only technically played together for two months, and as a newer coach, trust must be built between Jatt and his players to get the best results for the year.

“I’d say it’s always just a constant balance of knowing you wield a lot of power, and knowing when to best use it,” Jatt said. “It’s just a balance. It’s always hard to hit because I have great players, they’re very trustworthy, and they’re very good. So it’s about building trust between myself and them, and then ultimately finding the right conclusion at the end of the day.”

You can catch the full interview with Jatt on Dot Esports’ official YouTube channel, where he also talks about his focus on helping Liquid progress further on the international stage and how he thinks the team is “really freaking close to breaking through.”

Liquid will be back in action today when the 2021 LCS Spring Split continues.

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