'A very high investment' - A content Marcelo Bielsa reveals details of Leeds United training ground changes

He has a squad he feels he can use, with new faces he considers good signings and a host of youngsters he believes are being developed in the right way to play a part, when the time is right, for a club he deems ‘extraordinary’.

Leeds have had to work hard, relentlessly even, to make all of that a reality and create the working conditions Bielsa wants and needs to keep moving things forward.

The Argentine’s presence at Thorp Arch before yesterday’s press conference was the proof that CEO Angus Kinnear, director of football Victor Orta, head of facilities Mark Broadley, academy manager Adam Underwood et al are producing the necessary results from their work, empowered by the club’s financial backers.

Were things not quite right, you suspect Bielsa would not have been sitting down next to translator and analyst Andres Clavijo to hold a pre-match press conference ahead of tomorrow’s Premier League opener against Manchester United.

That’s not to suggest Bielsa would have flown the coop this summer had the slightest thing not gone his way – his intention was evidently always to stay in a project he himself has placed a heavy personal and emotional investment in – but still, there was work to be done and Leeds put a huge amount of stock in the head coach’s opinion.

They needed, at the very least, a left-back and a goalkeeper. The work to try and bring in a midfielder and a winger is ongoing. The 23s squad needed bolstering and Thorp Arch needed improvements. The effort to make all of that happen has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated.

“From my point of view this is an extraordinary club,” he said.

“It’s not often that you have a club that designates so much volume of investment to the improving of the training. In this sense Leeds have made a significant contribution economically for the tools for the manager to prepare his players to be the ideal ones. Everything that we need in this area, the club has resolved it with a very high investment, whether it be the pitches, the facilities, the technology, commodities for the work of the players and in this sense I am very astounded by the conduct of the club.”

Getting him to talk about the new deal he has agreed is akin to pulling teeth, but ask him to shine a spotlight on someone else at the club and there’s no stopping him.

He paid tribute to Orta and the recruitment department for their quality over quantity approach to the summer window, and Underwood’s academy for ensuring there is a stream of capable youngsters coming through to back up what is, by Bielsa’s design, a small first-team squad. He tipped his cap to Andrea Radrizzani for seeing the value behind the scenes.

“Very happy,” he said on the arrivals of Junior Firpo and Kristoffer Klaesson. “They are very-well-thought-out decisions, very revised, very analysed. And we think that all the conditions are there for them to have a good time at Leeds.

“That’s another segment of this club that functions with very high professionalism. For a long time I have been working in professional football now and very few times have I ever seen a club so well looked after like it is here, to decide when we sign a player.

“There is a marked evolution in this field of work because in every year the club has reduced the amount of professionals and incorporated very few. This year is yet another example that many more players have left than those who have arrived, that means the players at the club we consider them sufficient and adequate and that there is a very prolific and fertile contribution from the academy constantly through the work of the under-18s and under-23s.

“Those are the ones that I see but there is surely more work done in the lower levels, they always have responded to the needs that present themselves.

“In terms of the organisation, I consider that Leeds is an example and I focused the responsibility, Victor Orta is the one who structures the arrival of players and the director of the academy and the technical staff of the 23s give nutrients to the first team and the president, the owner of the club who makes investments that he could easily ignore.”

A lot of investment has been ploughed into the training ground, quite literally, as Bielsa revealed in detail. He said: “Thorp Arch a year on has been improving. The focus [has been on] some needs that weren’t resolved and free spaces which previously couldn’t be used have been made into spaces that can be used with grass.

“One pitch has undersoil heating so that in the winter there is no problem with training, with regards to snow or the weather.

“The facilities have been improved so that that can happen with two other pitches in the future and there is a path being created for the machinery for the work around the pitches so that it doesn’t damage the pitches. After, there is a lot of more minor details that make the options for work to be better. All of this is done with a lot of professionalism and the director of the club and those in charge of construction have been impeccable in their work.”

Their work allows Bielsa to do his and, while the builders were in at Thorp Arch this summer, Bielsa was laying the groundwork for a new season. Most Leeds fans would agree he has been almost impeccable himself since he arrived. He is loved at a club he loves. When asked to explain the depth of his affection for Leeds United he deferred his proper response but what he said spoke volumes.

“There are answers I would like to give when I no longer work here, because being inside the institution you run the risk that the answers are demagoguery and interpreted as seeking the sympathy of the fans.

“I think that after you belong to an institution is the moment to refer to the feelings that have taken place.”

The time for talking about his love for Leeds will come later. Right now there is a job to be done. In any case, Bielsa’s body of work to date at Elland Road says all that needs to be said.