Leeds United mainstay remained at club by ‘chance’

Leeds United’s Mateusz Klich has come in for huge praise from Marcelo Bielsa after his start to life in the Premier League, with Bielsa claiming he could play for the best teams in the world.

Having signed back in the summer of 2017 under Thomas Christiansen, Mateusz Klich has had to work extremely hard to earn his long-term place at the club.

Initially cast out into the cold by Christiansen, a slip away at Cardiff City looked like it could have been his last every involvement in a Leeds shirt, especially when he went to Utrecht in January and ripped up the Eredivisie.

Not many will have thought that he was going to be transformed under Marcelo Bielsa into one of Leeds United’s most important players, missing just one league game in the entirety of Bielsa’s Elland Road career so far. It was a justifiable absence away to Derby County, too, as he was clearly feeling a touch rough after the promotion celebrations on the two nights prior.

With the Premier League underway, Klich took to it like a duck to water with a typically stylish effort away to Liverpool, before tucking home a confident penalty against Fulham the week after.

So far he’s managed two goals and three assists in the top flight from nine games, a very solid return that he’ll know should have been added to against Arsenal when he skewed over from inside the box.

Pressing from the top of the midfield quartet, Klich has proven his importance to Bielsa’s system in the Premier League, and his manager has been waxing lyrical about said impact ahead of the trip to Goodison Park.

Speaking in his pre-match press conference, Bielsa spoke at length about the Poland international, claiming that luck intervened to ensure he stayed in West Yorkshire, rather than his own judgement to start him in the number eight position. Bielsa detailed (via the Yorkshire Evening Post): “Klich for me is a player that can play in all the best teams in the world.

“He is in Leeds by chance, it doesn’t have to do with the fact that I decided he continued at Leeds.

“In the first pre-season, I asked him if he would consider playing as a centre-back. It so happened that one pre-season game, the last game before the start of the season against Las Palmas, the candidates for the player to play in the number eight role started falling away. I’m referring to [Adam] Forshaw and Ronaldo Vieira, their absence allowed him to play and show his ability. He hasn’t been out of the team since.

“All the praise should go to him and to Victor Orta who is the player who brought him here.”

What we’ve seen is that Mateusz Klich’s future was in even more doubt during Bielsa’s first pre-season, but faith to play him in what was perceived to be an unfamiliar position for him turned out to be the rebirth of him.