Tomorrow is the day Leeds fans have been waiting for, Marcelo Bielsa will land in West Yorkshire and at Elland Road as the first-team coach and things are about to get very real. Transfers will be pushed on, players will be put through their paces and perhaps be out the door, it’s about to go down at Leeds United.
Leeds have often produced false dawns for the fans, but this start feels very different. We haven’t settled for second best, in fact we have gone out and get one of the worlds best. It took its time to bring in Marcelo Bielsa but it seemed worth it the day Leeds United tweeted with white smoke and an Argentina flag above it. Tomorrow sees the start of the Bielsa era and the players and fans are about to get a culture shock.
“Brave New World”
The above is the title of a book some may have heard of and it has some relevance to the article, believe it or not. Brave New World was a book written about Argentine coach Mauricio Pochettino at Tottenham Hotspur, his big project in England. The same is about to happen for another Argentine in Bielsa at Leeds United and the pair know each other very well, Pochettino describing him as a “father figure” in his footballing career.
One thing is for sure, Bielsa is going to want to hit the ground running and he’ll be demanding some signings. It’s unfair to say Leeds are behind any of the other clubs because to be quite honest, nobody is really making big moves as of yet and that’s for a few reasons. The window opened early which threw everyone off a little and the World Cup is certainly a distraction.
In recent days it’s become clear that Bielsa will be very high maintenance but that isn’t a problem for the fans, just the hierarchy. He wanted things done at Thorp Arch and he wants players in, has put a block on the transfer of Jerry Mbakogu and a deal with Abel Hernandez is on the back-burner because he wants £12 million Matej Vydra instead.
Strap yourselves in, El Loco is about to arrive.
