Marcelo Bielsa's Leeds United future, his past with Everton's Frank Lampard and the present reality

When you're living so close to peril, time and energy can only be given to the present.

For Bielsa, eyeing the final corner before the finishing straight of his fourth season at Elland Road, this time of year brings a familiar routine.

The names of potential replacements appear in the media and talk begins to turn to his intentions and plans for 2022/23 and beyond. It's a little early yet, but it won't be long before the questions will come, to all of which he'll politely reply that decisions over his job status will be taken when all the games have been played. Despite reports that emerged well in advance of the final fixture of the 2020/21 campaign, some of which suggested he would pen a longer-term deal, his customary one-year contract was confirmed in August.

There's always the potential for a surprise, he is not a man to be second guessed, but it feels like he'd be mortified at the idea of his personal plans overshadowing the team's final games in any season, never mind in one that still has so much at stake. Leeds, of course, have to start putting tentative plans in place in case the summer brings a need for a new head coach, however that eventuality arises or on which side of the table the decision is taken. Considering the length of his stays in previous jobs, Bielsa has been at Leeds for a long time and has had to face a lot, including a global pandemic, while stationed so far from his home and his family. He shows no signs of turning his gaze elsewhere, however, because it never shifts from the immediate task in front of him, the next game. Who knows what the summer will hold, but today, tomorrow will be left to take care of itself.

For Lampard, barely a couple of steps into a new journey, the future and potential next jobs are irrelevant because right now he has the job of keeping Everton up and having come into a club mid-season, mid-crisis, all his time and energy has to go into the all-consuming demands of day-to-day management. He's trying to introduce his playing philosophy, getting to know players and the collective strengths and weaknesses of a squad, all the while preparing for and debriefing after games that never get any easier when you're closer to the bottom than you are the top.

For a man who has never been relegated, being in such close proximity to the drop zone will be unfamiliar and uncomfortable. For a club that has never been relegated from the Premier League, a mid-season appointment was always going to carry risks but Everton are staking a huge amount on Lampard thriving in a very different environment to the one he has grown accustomed.

Today's game pits Everton, the side sitting in 16th on 19 points, against Leeds, the team directly above them holding four points more. It pits Bielsa against a man with whom he has previous - considerable, storied, disputed, controversial previous. Yet none of it matters today.

"It's long gone history, a lot has happened since then for me and for Leeds," said Lampard in his press conference ahead of the game.

"I've got actually complete respect for Marcelo Bielsa as a coach, the way he works is relatively unique and the results he gets out of it and players. They're a good team to watch if you're a neutral because of the energy in the team. I've got loads of respect for him. We just go up against them worrying ourselves and trying to get a result. That's how I feel personally."

For some time now he has been keen to play Spygate down and, speaking to Gary Neville while between jobs appeared eager to challenge the view that, at the time, it enraged him.

There is no fire to be stoked here, even if there remains in him an ember of desire to get one over on Leeds, or a fanbase that mocked him so tunefully. Lampard has no time or, it seems, any appetite for all of that right now, although having taken his turn to mock, cannot expect the away fans to show that they've moved on when they file into Goodison today.

Both Lampard and Bielsa will be focused entirely on the game and there is commonality in their approach to it - it's a big game but it's not any more of a must-win game than any of the ones that will follow.

Bielsa recognises that the result will have consequences, as they all do, but this is just game number 23 of the Premier League season for Leeds, so those consequences cannot be fatal.

“Of course, evaluating the positions in the league offers conclusions, but with more than 50 points still left to play for, we have to link the current conclusions with what is left," he said.

"But it is also true that what happens, starts designing the future. Every game and every point that is picked up is having repercussions, whether that be at the bottom of the table or in the middle of the table.”

Lampard also points out just how much of the season is left to play with but there also appears to be a link between his distaste for dubbing this afternoon's game must-win and the difficulty Leeds pose.

"I definitely don't want to go over the top, we want to win the game," he said.

"I watched them play in midweek against Villa, the quality of their team, to stand there and say with 16 games to go after that Leeds is a must-win game, I don't see it that way.

"I certainly don't want to put everything on this weekend because it's a really tough game and there's a lot of points to play for afterwards. Don't take me as that taking it lightly, of course it's the opposite, we want to win the game and we'll give everything to do that."

So too will Bielsa and Leeds. No quarter will be given, or asked by the Argentine, no matter how much he might empathise with the reality facing his touchline counterpart. When Lampard was sacked by Chelsea, Bielsa lamented that the Englishman was not given the chance to complete the 'interesting project' he had begun at Stamford Bridge. There will be nothing personal in his desperation to hand Lampard a defeat today, but the desperation will be there all the same.

A subplot will always present itself when these two men come face to face but the story today is simply of two old English clubs fighting for three points they both need. Regardless of the quality of the football produced, the game itself will, with all its tension and urgency, be compelling enough to put the past and the future in their place for 90 minutes at least.