Andy Townsend hears rumours Kalvin Phillips returned to Leeds United overweight
Andy Townsend has heard rumours that Kalvin Phillips returned to Leeds United overweight after his summer holiday.
Phillips, 25, spent almost all of the summer with England as they reached the European Championships final before having a break of around two weeks before he returned to pre-season training with Marcelo Bielsa and his teammates.
The defensive midfielder was an unused substitute for the 5-1 defeat away to Manchester United on Saturday and Townsend is baffled that he didn’t start that game.
The ex-Chelsea player also revealed what he’d heard about Phillips’ physical condition when he did return to pre-season training.
“Kalvin Phillips is on the bench. You’re at Old Trafford, you’re at Man United first game of the season and there are going to be 70,000 in there,” said Townsend on talkSPORT on Tuesday, as shown on the radio station’s official Twitter account.
“I don’t see the point of having Kalvin Phillips on the bench. I see the point of starting him and maybe saying, ‘give me the best hour you’ve got, give me what you can’.
“But I don’t see the point of having someone like him on the bench but not starting him. I really don’t.
“There have been some rumours – and I have no idea where they’re justified or whatever – that he was a bit overweight when he came back after the summer.
“Well if he’s that overweight, he shouldn’t be on the bench. He should be back at Leeds training morning and night to get himself in the best shape for the next game.”
Absolute rubbish
We really, really struggle to believe this.
Phillips spent almost the entire summer playing for England at the Euros and impressing in every single match he played.
He then had a short break before he was back at Thorp Arch and training for Bielsa once again.
Do you really think he gained that much weight in such a short amount of time – so much weight that he couldn’t lose it in time for the Man United game? We really don’t. Not at all.
Phillips has had an astronomical rise at Leeds since Bielsa took charge and the manager gets a lot of credit for sculpting the 25-year-old from an average attacking midfielder in the Championship to one of England’s best midfielders and one of the best midfielders at the European Championships.
However, people forget to credit Phillips for that. He’s the one who’s put in the hard work and made himself one of the fittest players there is.
There’s no way he dropped his guard and piled on the pounds in the space of a couple of weeks.
What a load of rubbish.
In other Leeds United news, this forward could be left out of his club’s 25-man Premier League squad amid interest from the Whites.