Former Leeds United star Noel Whelan believes that keeping Marcelo Bielsa would be the best signing the club can make this coming summer and warned that the Argentine will have interest from other sides.
The Whites endured a bitterly disappointing finish to their debut season under Bielsa after crashing out of the playoff semi-finals against Derby County on Wednesday.
Despite being well on course for automatic promotion for the majority of the season, Leeds struggled towards the business end of the season and failed to secure a return to the top flight.
And in the wake of their disappointing exit from the playoffs, there has been talk about Bielsa’s future at Elland Road ahead of the summer.
As such, Whelan believes extending Bielsa’s stay in west Yorkshire would be the best summer signing Leeds could make, with the ball now firmly in the club's court.
The former White also added that Bielsa will have grabbed the attention of several clubs after the progress made by Leeds this term and stressed they must now lock him down and build for next season.
“From what he’s said there, ‘if they give me the option’, it’s not in his hands, it’s in the club’s hands from what he’s said there”, Whelan said on BBC Radio Leeds' Noel Whelan Show.
“I think the season he has had and from what he’s turned a very poor side around from the back of last season to what he’s done this year, there’s going to be a lot of people looking at him from Championship clubs to Premier League clubs to overseas clubs.
“So if we can manage to keep him, then that’s probably the best signing you can have at the minute of the summer because he knows what to do with the players, the players have already had a season with him, so they know what’s going to happen.
“They know what pre-season is going to be like, they know the style of play.
"It’s about building on that and getting the right recruitment in place to surround the rest of the group that he wants to keep to push on.”
Leeds are expected to hold talks with Bilesa next week as they try to plot a route forward into another season of Championship football.
