Leeds United Next Manager Odds: Five candidates priced from 6/5 to 12/1

• Corberan to continue Bielsa work

• Iraola likely to turn job down

• Hasenhuttl would pick up Marsch's work

Marsch Out

Leeds United have sacked Jesse Marsch after a run of two Premier League wins since August left them outside the bottom three on goal difference alone. His short spell has ended in charge with a 25% win ratio from 32 league matches.

In truth, the fit never quite felt right. Like his predecessor Marcelo Bielsa, Marsch was an uncompromising man who believed fiercely in his ideas of hard-pressing football played in straight lines, but unlike Bielsa, the American just didn't have the same capacity to work miracles.

His unerring self-confidence was impressive considering Leeds have one of the worst squads in the division and lost their two best players last summer.

He refused to adapt, continually letting us all know in spikey post-match press conferences that Leeds' luck would turn. They were good between both boxes but poor within them. That's not bad luck. It's something else.

Five potential Leeds candidates

Corberan (6/5) can continue Bielsa mission

Leeds are faced with a choice: either they continue down the Marsch/Bielsa path and double down on their principles, knowing that relegation is a high possibility.

However, setting themselves up for a strong Championship campaign and brighter future more generally isn't the worst thing to do, or do they find a defensive organiser who can get them over the line this year.

The list of candidates suggest they have gone with the former, and in that regard Carlos Corberan is the obvious choice as a former employee of Bielsa's at Leeds.

Corberan led the under-23s and was first-team coach in Bielsa's first year at the club before leaving to become manager of Huddersfield Town, where he deployed typical Bielsa tactics to get them to the playoff final last season.

That was followed by a very brief and disastrous spell at Olympiacos last autumn before he took the reins at West Brom.

They were 23rd upon his arrival after 16 games but have since enjoyed a remarkable turnaround and have just entered the top six.

He will continue the work of pressing hard, counter-attacking sharply, and implementing a formation-defying, position-swapping system that utilises Leeds' unusual fitness - and the muscle memory of those Bielsa years.

But although he turned things round fast at West Brom, it took over a year for things to click at Huddersfield, so it is worth asking whether Corberan's football is really what Leeds need for a relegation dogfight.

Nevertheless, if the goal is to build on the Bielsa, then there really is nobody better out there.

Iraola (2/1) could wait for a better chance

The second Bielsa-inspired candidate is 40-year-old Andoni Iraola, the current manager of Rayo Vallecano in La Liga and one of the most admired young coaches in Europe.

He is surprising everyone in Spain with his high press and maverick vertical playing style, his positional rotation and his use of unexpected formations. That's just what Leeds are looking for.

Iraola first caught the eye taking Segunda Division side Mirandes to the semi-final of the Copa del Rey in 2020, which earned him the Rayo Vallecano job that summer.

The young manager won promotion via the play-offs in his first season, then came 12th in La Liga last year, and is now pushing the club towards Europe: they are fifth and just three points off the Champions League places.

That might be a barrier for Leeds. It would surely make more sense for Iraola to see if he can take Vallecano into European competition next season, giving him a much wider audience and dramatically improving his reputation.

To leave for relegation-threatened Leeds would be a huge risk after what he has built, yet if he finishes the current campaign strongly he will be looking at either mid-table jobs in England or even Champions League ones in Spain.

Bielsa (7/1) comeback does not seem wise

It was February last year when Bielsa was brutally sacked, leaving Leeds two points above the relegation places with 12 games remaining.

It would be very weird if the club decided to rehire him in almost exactly the same situation, admitting, in the process, that they should never have got rid of him in the first place.

It just doesn't make much sense. It was highly unusual for Leeds to get three good years out of Bielsa, who usually struggles to last more than one, and to go back to him would potentially lead to an explosive ending.

What's more, the squad is no longer one built in his image, which will immediately cause friction.

In fact, Bielsa's presence as third favourite speaks primarily to the lack of insight there is on potential Bielsa-types out there. This is a non-starter.

Pochettino (8/1) must continue to wait

Leeds would obviously jump at the chance of hiring Mauricio Pochettino but there is very little chance the former Tottenham Hotspur and Paris Saint-Germain manager would accept a job this far down the pyramid - even if he has been without a position for seven months now.

His last achievement in the game was winning Ligue Un with the richest team in the world, so Pochettino can be confident his stock remains high despite being overlooked for roles since then.

This summer will see another high turnover of managers, and should he miss out on the super-clubs then Pochettino should at least wait until the Spurs job is available again.

Hasenhuttl (12/1) a strong backup plan

Should attempts to hire Corberan and Iraola fail, then Leeds will be forced to move further down their list and the free agent Ralph Hasenhuttl is not a bad shout.

At Southampton he ended up compromising on the high-energy, hard-pressing principles he had used at RB Leipzig - an old club of Marsch's - and would love to rebuild his status by going bigger and bolder at Leeds.

Hasenhuttl is a smart manager, too, who deserves the chance to show what he can do with more ambitious owners and a squad better suited to his ideas.

Things ended tamely at Saints, and he would therefore be an uninspiring option, but Hasenhuttl perhaps simply spent too much time with the club.

In a fresh environment, he may have the tactical bravery to continue the broad strokes of the Leeds philosophy only in a milder and more pragmatic way.

Given their precarious situation at the bottom, that might be precisely what Leeds need. They could do a lot worse.