A history like no other as Leeds United head coach Marcelo Bielsa and Chelsea boss Frank Lampard approach 'Part V'

Preston North End boss Alex Neil even trumps that with Bielsa and Neil having had four battles over two seasons in the Championship plus a Carabao Cup tie.

Yet no opposition boss provides quite the same backdrop to the man who will be in the opposition dugout on Saturday evening when Leeds face Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in Marcelo Bielsa versus Frank Lampard Part V.

Lee Johnson, Tony Mowbray, Dean Smith, Paul Cook, Neil Harris, Nathan Jones and Garry Monk complete the octet of managers that Bielsa has already faced four times.

Yet all four battles against Lampard came in the same season and that doesn’t even tell the half of it.

It all began on the second Thursday of August in 2018 as Bielsa was asked about the weekend’s clash at a Derby side for whom former Chelsea and England midfielder Lampard was taking in just his second game in charge - a game which would end in a 4-1 defeat.

“The head coach of Derby is a glory of English football and this always has a big influence on a team,” said Bielsa, and Rams boss Lampard was equally respectful.

“I am certainly looking forward to meeting him and intrigued to go up against him in a managerial battle. It will be a big welcome from myself and I think it should be from the club because he’s a great manager.”

It is only ironic that a member of Bielsa’s staff was then very much unwelcome in the build-up to the reverse fixture at