Leeds United confident Marcelo Bielsa will extend stay as Andrea Radrizzani insists it's an honour to manage the Whites

Whites owner Andrea Radrizzani hopes to sit down this week with the Argentine, who turns 65 tomorrow, to discuss next season and beyond. There is a strong sense around Elland Road that Bielsa wants to carry on the work he has started - Leeds even felt there was a good chance he would remain in place if promotion had not been achieved - but he is not a man to be second guessed, as Radrizzani acknowledged.

“Sometimes he can be an unpredictable man but I am confident he will be here next season,” said the Italian on Tuesday morning, less than 24 hours after Leeds celebrated their title and promotion on Derby County’s Pride Park pitch.

“We will sit down in the next few days.”

Those discussions, like the ones held after last season’s near brush with promotion, will centre around Bielsa’s review of the season, what needs to happen to improve performance, the playing squad, the backroom staff and Thorp Arch.

There is also the matter of Bielsa's personal terms – Premier League football brings additional remuneration for a number of Elland Road employees, not just players, in the form of pay rises and bonuses and the head coach will be no different.

But Radrizzani isn’t approaching the negotiations with any sense of desperation.

“I have a different view,” said the owner whose five-year plan to bring promotion to Elland Road came to fruition two years ahead of schedule.

“It’s an honour for Marcelo to be in charge of a club like this. It’s a choice, it’s an honour. At the end we don’t have to beg for anyone to stay.”

There’s no doubt, however, that Leeds and Radrizzani cherish the head coach who has transformed a mid-table team into champions, with a few additions, and transformed the culture at Thorp Arch. Bielsa was credited with playing a huge part in the awarding of Category One status to the academy and chief executive Angus Kinnear paid tribute to the head coach's dedication to bringing young talent through at Leeds. The CEO said Bielsa bought in to the club's traditional pathway from the youth system to the first team.

In Sunday's win over Derby there were three Under 23s players in the starting line-up, in local lad Jamie Shackleton, Pascal Struijk and January signing Ian Poveda.

"I think he's fallen in love with the club, I think he's committed to it," said Kinnear.

"I actually think he was committed to the Championship. We hadn't had a specific conversation but he's been very, very focused on what we've done with the academy, getting that to Category One status, he's hugely focused on developing the younger players. If we hadn't made it, it would probably have been the case that we'd be competing in the Championship with a younger squad and I think that challenge appealed to him."