Leeds United: Bielsa's not been in touch with Guardiola or Pochettino about loan deals

Manchester City boss Guardiola and Tottenham Hotspur manager Pochettino are both huge admirers of Bielsa’s work with Guardiola having described the 63-year-old as “the best manager in the world.”

Pochettino, who played under Bielsa at Argentinian side Newell’s Old Boys, has also described the former Argentina and Chile boss as “like my football father”.

Leeds already have one player on loan from Guardiola’s City in the shape of England under-21s winger Jack Harrison and Bielsa has admitted that one or two further additions on loan before the loan window closes on August 31 would be of use.

But United’s Argentine head coach says he has not been in touch with Guardiola or Pochettino about striking late August deals to loan players from City or Spurs with the 63-year-old making a point of conducting business in an utterly professional manner.

Asked if he had been in conversation with the likes of Guardiola or Pochettino about taking in loan players from their clubs, Bielsa said: “No, I don’t think it would have been a good thing to do to use a personal relationship of respect and love you have for both of them for a professional reason. You don’t have to manipulate the professional decisions.”

Bielsa has begun his Leeds tenure in perfect fashion with the head coach looking to make it three wins out of three in the Championship tomorrow with the visit of Rotherham United.

Leeds have made five signings for the first team this summer with striker Patrick Bamford’s £7m switch from Middlesbrough following the £3m capture of Championship winning left-back Barry Douglas from Wolves.

Having earlier signed midfielder Lewis Baker and goalkeeper Jamal Blackman on loan from Chelsea, City winger Harrison became the club’s fifth signing of the summer when also arriving at Elland Road on a season-long loan.

United had earlier identified former loanee centre-back star Kyle Bartley as one of their key targets of the summer but Bartley instead signed for West Brom and United are yet to bolster their defence.

The Whites have been in talks with Everton about a repeat loan deal for Matthew Pennington who spent the whole of last season on loan with the Whites though Bielsa has already expressed the fact that he has six options at centre-back in Pontus Jansson, Liam Cooper, Gaetano Berardi, Luke Ayling, Kalvin Phillips and Conor Shaughnessy.

It is also been suggested that Bielsa would welcome another wing option while Leeds lost a holding centre midfield option this summer following Ronaldo Vieira’s £7.7m switch to Sampdoria.

“As I said the last time there is a possibility that we could get one player or maybe two,” said Bielsa, asked if he could provide any updates over possible loan deals.

Asked what positions he had in mind, Bielsa said: “I’d rather not give any detail on that because we have many players in our group that can play in different positions and depending on the possibilities we have, we’ll think about the position we would like to strengthen. If I gave you an answer it wouldn’t be a definite answer.”