‘Couldn’t look at him’, ‘Ignored him’ – Cooper & Ayling mad at ‘stupid’ Leeds mainstay in Jan
Liam Cooper and Luke Ayling both revealed they were furious with Kalvin Phillips after he was sent off for Leeds United in the game against QPR in January.
The rash tackle came out of nowhere and saw Phillips banned for three games at a critical point in the season.
Leeds came from behind to beat Millwall in the first of these three games but lost the other two to Wigan and Nottingham Forest.
Talking on Sky Sports, Phillips said, “I missed playing in those three games after and I was gutted sat in the stands. We didn’t have good results either when I was banned.”
Liam Cooper admitted he was furious with Phillips and said, “I couldn’t look at him when he got sent off!”
However, he added, “I think, even if we were 1-0 up, Kalvin would still make that tackle. If you take that part out of his game you take out a lot of him. He plays on the edge sometimes.”
Ayling said the rest of the Leeds players ignored him.
“We just ignored him!” Ayling said. “I went in after and said ‘Kal, you’ve been silly’. The game was pretty much done, we were going through a tough spell and Kalvin is such a big player for us. For him to be missing for three games was such a big loss. It really hurt us.
“To be fair to him, though, he never made excuses. He said sorry and that he had been stupid.”
Phillips – our view
Phillips is absolutely essential to Leeds and the Bielsa system. After selling Ronaldo Vieira there’s no direct replacement for him in the side and they suffer when he’s out.
Adam Forshaw would be the player to deputise but he’s been out all season with a hip injury.
It meant that centre-back Ben White had to step up to midfield when Phillips was out – and he’s definitely improving in that position but nowhere near as solid as he is at centre-back.
Cooper is right – these tackles are a part of Phillips’ game but we disagree about not taking them out of his game.
You can lose the rash challenges and still play on the edge and it’s something he’s going to have to learn in the Premier League and when he makes the England squad.
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