Star Bielsa released at Leeds could be a Champions League player next season

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All of the Leeds United news is positive at the moment.

The Elland Road outfit dramatically won their relegation battle on the final day of the Premier League on Sunday, winning 2-1 away to Brentford to confirm their top-flight status for another year.

Naturally, manager Jesse Marsch and Victor Orta will know that there’s a lot of deadwood to be cleared from the Leeds squad during the summer.

Because honestly, there’s no way that United should’ve come as perilously close to relegation as they did and Andrea Radrizzani needs to heed the warning and give his men enough money to rebuild the squad over the coming months.

A lot of players will be leaving Leeds but, as Barry Douglas has proven, there is life after Elland Road.

Grass is greener for Douglas

The Scottish left-back was released by United under Marcelo Bielsa last summer, but he’s had a ridiculous first season away from West Yorkshire.

Last week, Douglas helped Lech Poznan secure a league title – his second with the Polish champions, having enjoyed another spell there earlier in his career.

And rather excitingly, the Glasgow-born defender could be playing Champions League football next season as a result.

After winning the Ekstraklasa, the former Leeds star and his teammates will enter the competition at the qualification phase this summer.

There’s no guarantee that Douglas and his colleagues will make it all the way to the group stage, but what is cemented is the fact that the player – deprived of Premier League football last season after being loaned to Blackburn Rovers – is thriving away from United and some current Leeds personnel will be looking at him as an example of how sometimes the grass can be greener ahead of their own departures this summer.