Former Leeds United ace compares Marcelo Bielsa's work to feat of Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp

DANNY MILLS believes Marcelo Bielsa's achievement in getting Leeds United promoted is close to Jurgen Klopp's feat of masterminding Liverpool's historic Premier League title triumph.
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Former Argentina manager Bielsa inherited a Whites side that had finished 13th in the previous Championship campaign upon becoming Whites head coach in June 2018.

Without widescale changes, Leeds then spent the majority of Bielsa's first season in charge in the division's two automatic promotion places only to fall away and finish third with 83 points.

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Defeat to Derby County in the play-offs semi-finals followed but Bielsa and Leeds went again and the Whites have now sealed promotion back to the Premier League as champions on 90 points with one game left.

IMPRESSED: Former Leeds United defender Danny Mills, right, with Whites chairman Andrea Radrizzani, centre, and chief executive Angus Kinnear at the club's centenary celebrations last October. Picture by Jonathan Gawthorpe.IMPRESSED: Former Leeds United defender Danny Mills, right, with Whites chairman Andrea Radrizzani, centre, and chief executive Angus Kinnear at the club's centenary celebrations last October. Picture by Jonathan Gawthorpe.
IMPRESSED: Former Leeds United defender Danny Mills, right, with Whites chairman Andrea Radrizzani, centre, and chief executive Angus Kinnear at the club's centenary celebrations last October. Picture by Jonathan Gawthorpe.

Leeds are now back with the big guns, headed by newly-crowned Premier League champions Liverpool who have been become champions of England for the first time in 30 years under former Borussia Dortmund boss Klopp who took over the Reds hotseat in October 2015.

Liverpool had finished sixth the previous campaign under Brendan Rodgers with the Anfield giants tenth when Klopp took over after Rodgers' three and a half years in charge.

Hailing Bielsa's work in ending United's 16-year exile from the country's top flight, former Whites defender Mills told Sky Sports: "Bringing Bielsa in was a big gamble, an expensive gamble for what he was and no-one quite knew which way it was going to go.

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"Everybody hoped I think that he would do what he has done but it's been tremendous.

"To take a team from 13th in the table, effectively the same group of players with a few loanees, no big signings coming in, to go from 13th to third, 83 points and then 87 points with two games to go and promotion is simply phenomenal.

"Everyone lauds Klopp and how great he has done over the last four or five seasons, I think Bielsa's achievement of where he has taken the club from and to, is not far off that."

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