Remember when I said last week where there’s no smoke, there’s no fire?
Well it looks as if someone decided to start that fire up again, because there has been a development in a story that looked to be dead a few days ago, and boy is it a big one.
According to The Sun, Leeds midfielder Kalvin Phillips could be about to throw a wrench into Leeds’ plans for the season and turn down a contract offer from the club so that he can force through a move to Aston Villa. The story also states that the 23-year-old could sit out the rest of the season if he has to, leaving the club in the precarious position of entering next summer with just one year remaining on his contract.
Whilst it might be a little bit late in the day for Phillips to start issuing threats to the club, seeing as Villa signed a man who can play his position last week in Douglas Luiz, it’s possible that he could be doing it to raise interest from other Premier League sides that are interested in his services, like Bournemouth, Wolves and Spurs.
Like many things this summer, this comes down to the club not being organised enough to get things sorted quicker. They are being reactive rather than proactive. Kalvin Phillips is an integral part to how Leeds play and the club shouldn’t be taking risks in letting it get to this stage. Whilst it didn’t seem like a ‘do or die’ situation for the club with two years left on his current deal, that shouldn’t have stopped them sorting this out at the earliest possible opportunity, simply to put all these rumours, and fears of approaches to bed.
Fulham recently renewed the contracts of Tom Cairney & Aleksander Mitrovic, even though they weren’t set to expire until 2023, so I don’t want to hear anything about how Leeds had plenty of time to renegotiate. If you are confident in someone’s ability, you lock them down as soon as you can for as long as you can.
While the move to Villa is probably dead for the time being, the fact that the report specifically mentioned the Midlands club means we shouldn’t rule anything out further down the road, like in the January transfer window for instance. However, the simple way to put a stop to this is simple, pay the man.
The Leeds fans love him, he’s one of their own, he’s vital to how the team plays. Just pay him and we can put all this nonsense to bed. It may cost more than you’re willing to give up, but the good feeling you’ll get off the back of it from the supporters will be worth its weight in gold.