Spotlight on Pascal Struijk as Leeds United youngster continues to progress in two positions

Struijk has been highly thought of by Leeds and Bielsa for some time but had to wait until the Championship clash at home to Hull last December before making his debut as an 89th-minute substitute.

Only three league starts and two more outings from the bench have followed since but Struijk has made big strides in the nine months that have followed and the 21-year-old could already now be seen as third choice centre-back and second choice holding midfielder.

With skipper Liam Cooper injured, Struijk was handed a quick Premier League debut in what was just his third league start in last weekend's top-flight opener at Liverpool alongside summer recruit Robin Koch as centre-back.

As a brand new pairing and faced with an attack like Liverpool's, the duo were not surprisingly caused problems.

But the outing and performance was another step in the right direction for Struijk who was then called for from the bench in Wednesday night's Carabao Cup tie at home to Hull when brought on at half-time for Oliver Casey in the holding midfield role.

Natural centre-back Casey is another bright young talent at Leeds but struggled somewhat in the holding midfield role against the Tigers leading to Struijk's introduction.

The Belgian-born former Netherlands youth international is also a natural centre-back himself but impressed in the deep lying midfield role at the back end of last season when Kalvin Phillips was injured, especially given his inexperience.

And while a completely changed Leeds side were very much second best against the Tigers, Struijk proved one of United's best players on the figures and his versatility and ability to play at both centre-back and central defensive midfield is just what Bielsa likes.

Despite only coming at half-time, Struijk still had 43 touches of the ball for 4.4 per cent of the overall possession and boasted the game's fifth-best passing success rate with 26 of 32 passes accurate for 81 per cent.

Struijk was also successful with two out of three attempted tackles in addition to making three interceptions and one successful dribble.

Not a vintage performance but on a difficult night it was one of United's better ones on what was still only Struijk's seventh outing of any kind in professional football.

Given how much Bielsa can improve players, Struijk could progress enormously in the current campaign and United's head coach will clearly be taking that into account when assessing his centre-back options.

Despite the arrival of Koch, Leeds still look short of another first team centre-back option given how impressive Ben White was last season and the fact that Gaetano Berardi is out injured but it's hard to tell just how far Struijk could progress in the coming months.

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Thank you Laura Collins