Leeds United, Marcelo Bielsa's commitment, peace of mind and the 'signing of the summer'

No one at Elland Road appears to be panicking about the lack of signed, confirmed and announced contract extension for the Peacocks’ head coach as the season nears.

Fans, who expected it to be sorted out weeks ago, have almost given up on asking for updates on Twitter. Almost.

The explanation for the lack of agitation around the club itself seems to be that Bielsa is behaving exactly as he would had the contract been signed.

A quartet of murderball sessions last week showed his determination to get his players ready for the physical demands of the Premier League.

He is involved, heavily, in discussions over potential signings and loan moves that could see young fringe players gain their match minutes elsewhere.

Robin Koch’s head must have been spinning when he received videos of himself, videos of Leeds games and a presentation on how he is expected to play when he pulls on the new Adidas shirt and runs out at his new home ground.

A pair of new, high-profile signings on Saturday in the form of Rodrigo and Koch did Leeds supporters and their pre-season anxiety the world of good on their own, but Koch’s revelations were tremendously reassuring: Bielsa is behaving very much like Bielsa.

He’s devoted to making Leeds United players better and improving the team and when they travel to Anfield on September 12 he and his padded blue bucket will be there.

It’s understandable that when a man who obsessively thinks about football is spending all his time focusing on football and you are the club that is benefiting from his obsession and his work, you might be tempted to just leave him to it.

The Leeds hierarchy defer to Bielsa on footballing matters and are accommodating in every way to give the world-renowned coach what he wants, which is to say they try to ensure he has what he believes he needs to do his job.

He might personally hate the suggestion but, among all the employees at Leeds, he is the special one and absolutely integral to their recent success and their short-term hopes.

It could even be argued, and in fact already has been by Victor Orta, that Leeds will feel the positive impact of the former Argentina and Chile boss for years to come.

This is the man who parted a sea of stubbornly competitive Championship clubs and led Leeds back to the promised land after 16 long years of exile that felt more like 40 to many who endured them.

He has revolutionised life at Thorp Arch, transformed players like England’s Kalvin Phillips and completed a clear pathway from an academy he helped to gain Category 1 status to a first team that has lit a fire under the fanbase with their beautiful title-winning football.

‘Bielsa knows best, let him get on with it,’ is not a strategy that has proven unwise, given the results he has produced on and off the pitch.

All of that being said, it would stop imaginations from running wild if the head coach popped down to Elland Road and just put his signature on that piece of paper.

There are no question marks over his commitment, none whatsoever but peace of mind is a rare commodity at a club where ‘Leeds, that’ has become a coverall for a multitude of worst case scenarios that actually came true.

Thanks to the current regime and the man they employed to lead the team, the club’s name is becoming more associated with good things and happy thoughts. Yet for all the excitement elicited by record signing and international striker Rodrigo’s appearance in a white shirt and all the astonished glee were the club somehow to get international midfielder Rodrigo De Paul to follow suit, an image of a 65-year-old bespectacled man from Rosario smiling benignly with a pen in his hand is what the people, Bielsa’s people really want.

That would be the signing of the summer.