By Craig Scott

21st Oct, 2020 | 4:10pm

Rio Ferdinand sends four-word message to Leeds player after major update

Rio Ferdinand has reached out to Kalvin Phillips after the Leeds United midfielder suffered a shoulder injury in the defeat to Wolves on Monday.

On Wednesday, Leeds confirmed that Phillips, 24, will miss six weeks’ worth of action due to the setback.

Phillips took to his personal Instagram account to say that he will be “out for a few weeks” while he recovers, adding that he’s lucky that he doesn’t have to undergo surgery.

Ferdinand and Jermaine Beckford are two former Leeds players who responded to the update on Phillips, with Ferdinand saying: “Stay on it, bro.”

Leeds will miss Phillips.

The England international has played every minute of every Premier League match so far this season and was instrumental in helping the Yorkshire club win promotion from the Championship last term.

However, out of the nine matches he missed last season, Leeds won seven and lost twice.

While we would all rather see Phillips play in the midfield, it seems that Marcelo Bielsa’s men have a way of rallying themselves to perform well in the 24-year-old’s absence.

Pascal Struijk will replace Phillips at the base of Leeds’ midfield for the trip to Aston Villa on Friday night (via Phil Hay).

It remains to be seen how Struijk will perform but he stood in for Phillips at the back-end of last season in the Championship and did a superb job.

Stats by WyScout show that Struijk completed 92 and 87 per cent of his passes in starts against Derby and Charlton respectively last season when he played as a holding midfielder.

He also completed all five of the long-range passes he attempted in those two games and made nine interceptions.

We have faith in him but there’s no denying that Villa will target him this week.

In other Leeds United news, this Leeds player is set to take up a coaching role at Thorp Arch.