MOT View: Leeds reportedly on brink of sealing £154k/wk deal and it will be worth every penny
We thought it would have been done by now but Leeds United fans are still waiting for Marcelo Bielsa to sign his new contract.
It seems to be on the way. Bielsa is taking training, despite being out of contract, and it seems like it’s only a matter of time until it’s made official. In the meantime, he’s effectively working for free.
The Sun has claimed that Bielsa is on the brink of signing a deal worth £8m-a-year, a contract that would make him the sixth highest-paid manager in the Premier League.
It would put him below Pep Guardiola (£20m a year) and Jurgen Klopp (£15m a year) but above Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who’s on £7.5m-a-year.
It’s a huge amount of money for Leeds that works out around £154k-a-week, way more than any of the current players.
It’s more than Sadio Mane (£100k-a-week) and James Milner (£140k-a-week) get at Liverpool.
However, you’d be hard-pressed to find any Leeds fan who doesn’t think it represents excellent value for money.
Bielsa has taken Leeds back to the Premier League and is now set to turn a squad that he inherited into top-flight stars.
This is a squad of players who finished 13th in the Championship before Bielsa arrived at Elland Road.
Bielsa is already a legend among fans. He’s regularly spotted walking to Thorp Arch where he’s occasionally been known to sleep over.
His attention to detail makes him one of the hardest workers in football and he demands the same from his players.
It’s on the pitch that really counts, though, and Bielsa excels here. He’s got the biggest win percentage of any Leeds manager, with a 56% win rate and 1.85 points-per-game over his 100 games in charge.
It’s going to be almost impossible to keep up that record in the Premier League, but Bielsa has already done what so many managers before him have failed to do.
He’s worth every penny of that £8m-a-year deal for us – and should be said that Bielsa will pay the wages of his backroom staff from his salary, too.
MOT Leeds News columnist Paul Robinson has said it will be the biggest signing Leeds make this summer and we agree.
We also think the deal will finally get confirmed this week.
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