Marcelo Bielsa discusses plans for new Leeds United recruit Diego Llorente and fitness for Sheffield United clash

Spanish international defender Llorente joined Leeds for a fee in the region of £17m on Thursday but Bielsa says the 27-year-old had been match ready with the Spaniard an unused substitute in Sunday's La Liga clash at home to Real Madrid and playing the full 90 minutes of the previous weekend's draw at Valladolid.

Bielsa admits that the centre-back will have nevertheless experienced an "atypical" week but the defender is physically in a good enough shape to feature in Sunday's Yorkshire derby if required.

United's head coach also played down suggestions that new signings would need additional time to adapt to his own ways compared to other managers.

"I don’t have any physical preference compared to any other manager, especially at centre-back which is a position where you run the least," said Bielsa at his pre-match press conference.

"So I think if he needed to play that he could.

"He was due to play against Real Madrid just before his transfer was agreed.

"As a result, if he was able or going to play against Real Madrid then he’s sufficiently prepared to play for us but it is true that this last week would have been atypical for him and his team-mates will need to adapt a little bit more."

Bielsa also explained that Llorente had been signed to provide another option as a right-sided centre-half and not with a view to regularly playing three at the back.

United now have Llorente, skipper Liam Cooper, Robin Koch and Pascal Struijk as their four main centre-back options with Luke Ayling and Kalvin Phillips also able to fill in if required.

"He’s a centre-back who can play either side, on Koch’s side or Pascal or Cooper’s," said Bielsa of Llorente.

"Technically he has a sufficient technique to play in the Premier League and he also has the ability to adapt to the physical demands of the Premier League.

"It’s not that we plan to play with a back three more often but it’s not to increase competition also because Pascal played a very important game against Liverpool.

"But in Koch's position he is the only right-sided centre-back that we have at the moment and if he got injured then we would have had to have got someone very young from the youth team or we would have had to have moved Ayling or Phillips out of position.

"I believe that seeing as we don’t have Berardi and that Ben White has left, it was necessary to be able to count on two players for this position."

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Thank you Laura Collins