OPINION
Anyone who has watched Leeds United’s Under-23s and Under-18s for any length of time this season can see the transformative effect of Marcelo Bielsa.
The coaching mastermind has not just overseen a massive improvement of the first team that could end with a return to the Premier League, he has provided an entire blueprint for the club at all levels.
The age-group sides play in the same swashbuckling, all-energy style as the seniors, and youngsters are being fast-tracked into the first team primed and ready to make an impact.
Jack Clarke and Jamie Shackleton have been the standout teenagers, but plenty more could follow in the next season or two, with a clear pathway from youth to senior side.
That is likely to have been one of the reasons Motherwell rising star Stuart McKinstry has shrugged off interest from Premier League clubs to join Leeds United in the summer.
The unofficial Leeds academy account, which is a reliable source of news about the club, claim the 16-year-old winger is headed to Elland Road from the Scottish Premiership club.
https://twitter.com/leedsutdacademy/status/1107763478649933824
McKinstry is regarded as one for the future, rather than the here and now, but so was Clarke at the start of the season, and look at the impact he’s made under Bielsa.
Like the 18-year-old home-grown star, McKinstry is a wide attacker bursting with potential.
His call-up to the Scotland Under-17s squad is proof of how highly rated the son of ex-Motherwell player John McKinstry is north of the border.
Leeds have landed another unpolished gem in the teenager following increasingly impressive recruitment at youth-team level over the last two years by director of football Victor Orta.
McKinstry can be a sensation under Bielsa, who regards age as no barrier whatsoever to a place in his starting XI.