Former England striker Darren Bent has been giving his thoughts on the performance of key midfielder Kalvin Phillips following his performance in the draw against Nottingham Forest last Saturday.
Welcoming Forest to Elland Road for our second Championship clash of the 2019/20 campaign, we couldn’t build on the three points we took from Bristol City on opening day, and we did have the chances, but we remained unbeaten as we took a point.
With the consensus being we had dropped two points and Patrick Bamford being a talking point after he hit the bar, Phillips’ own moment of madness that earned him a yellow card became a talking point for Bent, but I’m not quite sure why.
Speaking to what is now a pretty regular commentary piece in Football Insider recently, he was full of praise for the effort and determination of the 23-year-old but he focused in on his ‘rashness’ as if it was something we see often from him – suggesting that manager Marcelo Bielsa needs to sit down and speak with him about it.
“That aggression is brilliant in a footballer. That passion to win the ball is brilliant but it needs to be controlled because what you don’t want is one of your best players on risk watch. Ultimately you need him. Ultimately if Bielsa can sit down with him and say: ‘I love that, I never want to take that out your game but just be careful, we can’t afford to keep losing you and be a little bit careful and cautious.’”
It was the ‘keep losing you’ where I got a little bit lost.
In three games so far in 2019/20 he’s been booked once. In 2018/19 he picked up nine yellows and one red, compared to 13 yellows in 2017/18.
I’m not so sure that qualifies as ‘keep losing you’ myself?
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