Huge boost for Leeds as new date put on Phillips return from injury – The Athletic
The Leeds United manager dropped a bit of a curveball in his pre-match press conference on Wednesday afternoon.
Marcelo Bielsa said that the club’s own information on the length of time that Kalvin Phillips would be out for was “incorrect”.
That had been put at six weeks. Bielsa didn’t really clear things up, though, saying that Phillips could be out for more time or less.
However, it’s looking like much less at the moment.
Writing in The Athletic, Phil Hay claimed “Leeds think there is a chance of Phillips making Arsenal at home on November 21 (or whichever date Sky decides to move it to).”
That would be a major boost for Leeds.
The initial six-week period would have seen Phillips miss Aston Villa, Leicester, Crystal Palace, Arsenal and Everton.
If Phillips does come back when Leeds now expect him to, he would only miss three games, with the next international break in mid-November coming to Leeds’ rescue.
Irreplaceable – but Struijk will try
Leeds fans know that there’s no one who can really replace Kalvin Phillips at Leeds.
In that sense, he’s our Virgil van Dijk.
Pascal Struijk has the unenviable chance of trying on Friday night.
Losing Phillips for three games is bad but it’s a hell of a lot better than losing him for five games, and the Arsenal and Everton matches are arguably the toughest of the next five.
Leeds fans have been moaning about the last international break, which saw two senior centre-backs (Liam Cooper and Diego Llorente) come back to Thorp Arch injured.
However, the next one means that Phillips will miss one less game and it sounds like Leeds now expect him to return to action after that.
The other good thing about this is that if Phillips only misses three games, he should come straight back into the first team, rather than going through the Under-23s, as Bielsa likes to do for players who have spent longer on the sidelines.
However, if Bielsa does want Phillips to have a run-out first, he might miss the Arsenal game and play in the Under-23s against West Brom on November 23.
We hope he’s back for Arsenal instead.
In other Leeds United news, ‘Staggering’, ‘Suicidal’ – Phil Hay post on Leeds v Villa clash has lots of Whites fans talking