A city daily teamed up with a local football club to run a front page wraparound after revealing its manager was set to stay in his job.

The Yorkshire Evening Post joined forces with Leeds United to run the paid-for wrap marking news that the club’s boss Marcelo Bielsa had agreed to extend his contract into next season.

News of the agreement had been broken prior to the wrap, which featured a message of United chairman Andrea Radrizzani and player Liam Cooper.

It received praise from supporters, as well as Times chief football writer Henry Winter, who described it on Twitter as a “powerful wrapround”.

Editor Hannah Thaxter told HTFP: “If the YEP were a person it would be LUFC through and through. There is so much love for the club in the newsroom and in this city and the YEP has an excellent relationship with the club.

“When James Mooney, the head of Press and PR from Leeds United approached me initially it was to make discreet inquiries about some potential advertising. We knew this meant some big news for the club, and as journalists we were duty-bound to try and winkle out of him what that news was – but he was giving nothing away.

“We had our own ideas as to what it might be, but trust is hard won and easily lost and you don’t build good relationships by breaking trust so we had to bide our time for a couple of days. But then the announcement that Bielsa would be staying was briefed to our sports team that day and we knew there would only be one story in town.

“It sent our web hits soaring and was already planned to be our front and back pages but, once the club confirmed they wanted the wrap we were delighted. It took some hasty rearranging and moving content around but it looked fantastic and we were proud to have the paper wrapped by this fantastic work – thank you Craig Wilson at Leeds United.”

United narrowly missed out on automatic promotion to the Premier League this season, and were subsequently defeated in the promotion play-off semi-finals by Derby County, who then lost the play-off final to Aston Villa

Hannah added: “Bielsa is great news for the club and the fans love him. That the club, and owner Andrea Radrizzani, wanted to speak directly to fans through the YEP is something to be celebrated.

“It’s been emotional, but we’re ready to go marching on together next season – bring it on.”