Sort Bielsa's contract, sign a striker: what Leeds must do next to thrive

Persuade Marcelo Bielsa to sign a new contract

The 64-year-old’s contract runs out next week and he is still to agree a new deal. Although the Elland Road mood music is encouraging, offering strong suggestions he will stay, Bielsa is nothing if not unpredictable. No one at Leeds will relax until pen has been applied to paper. Given that uncertainty is invariably corrosive and the transfer window is about to swing open the “Marcelo a Remainer” headlines could do with appearing sooner rather than later.

Buy a prolific striker - or, ideally, two – and reinforce the spine

Patrick Bamford’s movement is wonderful but he misses too many chances to be trusted as the main striker at the highest level. With Bielsa’s January loan gamble on the French striker Jean-Kevin Augustin failing – although Leeds face a potentially complicated, and expensive, legal wrangle with Leipzig who believe they agreed a deal whereby the forward would automatically move to Elland Road for £18m this summer once promotion was secured – the hunt is on for replacements.

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Further back, Ben White has excelled at centre-half and recruiting the Brighton loanee on a more permanent basis should be a priority. Given that the former Real Madrid goalkeeper Kiko Casilla is expected to leave and, the albeit very promising 20-year-old, Ilan Meslier is inexperienced, a new goalkeeper needs to be high on the shopping list. Preferably a sweeper-keeper, nifty with his feet.

Perhaps above all, it seems vital to wrap Pablo Hernández, the team’s 35-year-old creative catalyst, in cotton wool. One last hurrah of a season from the Spaniard could prove key to the team’s successful reintegration as members of the elite.

Adopt the Sheffield United approach to compromise

One potential problem next season is that Bielsa, providing he stays, does not do philosophical modification. “I don’t compromise – and I don’t say that as a virtue, it’s a defect,” the Leeds manager says. Considering received wisdom has it that newly promoted Premier League managers need to learn that caution, in the tactical and man-management spheres, is not always a cop-out this could become an obstacle. And particularly when Liverpool or Manchester City are in town. Leeds have played some sublime stuff this season but can they sustain it now the technical bar is rising several notches? Some pundits will argue that the team’s ultra-demanding system – high defensive line, high-energy pressing, frequent positional interchanging – represents a recipe for relegation. But they said similar things about Sheffield United and Chris Wilder’s uber-audacious overlapping centre-halves are still confounding opponents, still challenging for European qualification. As Bielsa would surely agree, fortune sometimes really does favour the brave.