I think that the Leeds board got this one wrong.
According to a report from Football Insider on Thursday, Leeds are said to have rejected an offer of £27m for midfielder Kalvin Phillips during the summer. What’s fascinating about this is that the offer is reportedly more than the release clause in Phillips’ new deal, meaning that the club could potentially lose out on millions of pounds if the club sells him this upcoming summer.
Given how key Kalvin Phillips is to the setup at Leeds United, and that he’s ‘one of our own’, it’s probably sacrilegious to suggest it, but I think that the club should have taken the deal. I did suggest that it might be an avenue worth looking into when Ander Itturaspe became a free agent, and that he’d be a perfect replacement for Phillips given that he’d worked under Marcelo Bielsa before at Athletic Bilbao, however that never came to pass.
Now whilst this could all be for nothing, the extra couple of millions of pounds that Leeds could miss out on is nothing compared to the riches that await Leeds United in the Premier League should they get promoted this season, it does leave a little bit of doubt in the back of my mind that perhaps they should have taken the deal and found a suitable replacement instead.
According to a report from Phil Hay of The Athletic, Phillips was the one man that Bielsa wanted to keep this summer above all others, and given how important he is to the team you can understand why the boss would feel that way.
At the end of the day though, promotion to the Premier League isn’t assured, so would you rather try and get promoted with Phillips in the team, or with Phillips out of the team but with the money to spend on someone who can help you out?
What do you think? Do you think that Leeds were right to have rejected the offer? Or do you think that they should have taken the offer and used the money to build the squad?