Leeds United boss Marcelo Bielsa is “80% likely” to stay on as manager next season, according to the Mirror (16.31).
It had been feared that the Argentine might walk away from Elland Road having failed to guide his side into the Premier League at the first time of asking.
According the report, however, after crunch talks with owner Andrea Radrizzani and director of football Victor Orta, he is keen to commit his future to the club.
OPINION
If this is true then Leeds fans will be dancing in the streets. Bielsa must be the most popular manager the club has had since they first came down from the Premier League, and it’s easy to see why. He is meticulous, charismatic, quirky, polite, tactically astute – in short he is everything you could want from a manager. Obviously, this is just a report, and there are no assurances of anything, but it is surely a positive sign, and one that will fill fans with hope. Replacing the Argentine would be a gargantuan task, and one that would surely have led to a step backward for the club. At least this way, United will get closure. If they go up, then they will feel that it is a justified reward for the work Bielsa has done. If they don’t then at least they can say that he tried his best to get the club back into the promised land.