Is Kalvin Phillips in the right place?
Maybe the right place for Kalvin was Leeds all along, because Manchester sure hasn’t looked like home from home for him so far.
When Kalvin Phillips, the Leeds born and raised midfielder, scored the winner in Leeds United’s centenary celebration match against Birmingham City in October 2019, manager Marcelo Bielsa described the moment as a gift from god. “Sometimes, God puts things in the right place,” he said, and while there had been no better candidate for scoring that goal than Kalvin, it felt like a touch of the divine was needed for the right thing to be done. Leeds United’s history has rarely been about the right things falling into the right places.
Since Phillips went over the Pennines to join Manchester City this summer, Bielsa’s words have allowed different interpretations. Maybe the right place for Kalvin was Leeds all along, because Manchester sure hasn’t looked like home from home for him so far. Or maybe it was about the level that goal was scored at, and the Championship was where Phillips belonged. Or perhaps this is a question of which deity had the most influence on helping Kalvin be in the right place on that day. Bielsa wouldn’t call himself God, but sometimes he bears that responsibility.
The right place. People from Leeds are supposed to know their place, but Phillips has just had his Christmas ruined by pursuing dreams beyond West Yorkshire on top of all he'd already done. The big transfer and the shoulder surgery all had the World Cup in mind, and he made it, and in that place he met reality. A combination of his lack of recent playing time and Jude Bellingham’s excellence made Phillips a bit-part squad player for England, with — as Sam Lee’s report for The Athletic points out — a bit-part squad player’s training regimen. It was the perfect storm for Phillips, a player whose body has always resisted what his coaches demand, travelling to Qatar without any match fitness in his tank and finding no way of adding some. Now he's back and his new manager, Pep Guardiola, is talking about it. "He is not injured, he arrived overweight," Guardiola said in his press conference ahead of Christmas, and playing Leeds. "I don’t know [why]. He didn’t arrive in the conditions to train and to play." The contentious point seems to be that Phillips took a week’s break instead of going straight back from the England squad to training with Manchester City, but the counter-argument is that Manchester City could have made him.
It’s impossible to tell whether Guardiola has made all this public because he’s angry at Phillips for being unprofessional, England for not protecting Phillips' fitness, his staff for not being stricter, or Fifa for scheduling this World Cup. Possibly he’s just angry at the world for all of it. Possibly he needs to get a grip. The question of Phillips’ fitness isn’t new, and the answer isn’t impossible: first Thomas Christiansen then Marcelo Bielsa understood he needed closer management, firmer checks, extra work. Phillips stands accused of not working hard enough to be ready, and the extra time off condemns him. But he seems damned too with a body that, no matter what work he puts into it, resists. He might have been training his backside off and it'll still be too big for City's scales. The point stands that Leeds and Bielsa turned Phillips into one of the most fearsomely physical players in the Championship, but now England, Manchester City and Pep Guardiola seem flummoxed by his chonk.