Marcelo Bielsa welcomes shot in the arm for Leeds United after stirring Aston Villa display

Leeds raised themselves from a pivotal and damaging Easter weekend to turn in a more convincing performance against Villa and begin setting themselves up for the play-offs.

A 1-1 draw at Elland Road confirmed Sheffield United’s automatic promotion to the Premier League, an outcome which was all but assured after the Blades’ 2-0 win over Ipswich Town yesterday.

Leeds allowed the Championship’s top two to slip away from them with defeats to Wigan Athletic and Brentford on Good Friday and Easter Monday respectively and they will finish third in the table unless they lose their final game at Ipswich Town next weekend and West Bromwich Albion beat Derby County.

The current table would pit Leeds against Derby in the play-off semi-finals and United and Villa could yet clash again in the final at Wembley on May 27.

Bielsa said: “For me it's a very important performance because we played against the best team in the Championship at this moment. We played against an opponent with this level but we were able to express the aspects which define our team.

“For us it was important and it was a challenge we wanted to face. We wanted to play against a big team and to show that we could beat them.”

Middlesbrough and Bristol City still have a chance of snatching sixth position from Derby but a semi-final against County would pit Bielsa against Frank Lampard, four months after the coaches clashed over the Spygate controversy.

“I don’t have any preference for the play-offs,” Bielsa said.