Leeds United are currently competing to return to the Premier League at the second time of asking in the Championship, after they lost in the play-offs last season.
The Whites were relegated in the 2022/23 campaign in the top-flight and that came after they cashed in on midfielder Kalvin Phillips and winger Raphinha in the summer of 2022 under Jesse Marsch.
Raphinha was sold to Spanish giants Barcelona for a reported fee of £55m and Manchester City agreed a £45m deal with the club to snap up Phillips.
Losing both players was clearly a blow to the squad, given the relegation that followed, and the England international’s departure was a particularly disappointing one.
Kalvin Phillips’ Leeds United career
The Yorkshire-born star came up through the youth ranks at Thorp Arch and worked his way into the first-team, playing at Championship and Premier League for Leeds.
In his career at Elland Road, Phillips scored 14 goals and provided 13 assists in 234 appearances in all competitions for the West Yorkshire outfit.
Kalvin Phillips | 20/21 PL | 21/22 PL |
|---|---|---|
Appearances | 29 | 20 |
Pass accuracy | 85% | 82% |
Key passes per game | 1.2 | 0.5 |
Tackles + interceptions per game | 4.2 | 3.9 |
Duel success rate | 52% | 46% |
As you can see in the table above, his best season in the top-flight with Leeds came in the 2020/21 campaign under Marcelo Bielsa, as he showed his ability in and out of possession.
At the end of that season, the club swooped to sign teenage midfielder Lewis Bate from Chelsea for a fee of £1.5m and they may have felt they had their next Phillips in the making, but it did not work out that way.
Lewis Bate’s Leeds career
The impressive teenager arrived at Elland Road having been capped by England at U17, U18, and U20 level, and he had been on the bench for the Blues in the Premier League and the Champions League.
First Impressions
What did pundits and fans alike think about their new star signing when they arrived? Football FanCast’s ‘First Impressions’ series has everything you need.
Bate made 23 appearances for the club’s U21 side during the 2021/22 campaign and clearly did enough to impress Bielsa, who handed him a Premier League debut against West Ham in January 2022 at the age of 19. This suggests that the former Whites boss believed in the English whiz’s potential at the time.
The youngster struggled in that game, though, as he lost eight of his ten duels, and his next two league appearances for the team did not come until May, against Arsenal and Chelsea – losing 11 of 12 duels in those two matches.
Bate struggled in those games at Premier League level but his emergence in the first-team and the trust put in him by Bielsa to play at that level and that age suggested that he had Phillips-esque potential to develop into a star for the Whites.
Marsch replaced Bielsa and decided to send the then-20-year-old out on loan to Oxford United in League One, where the central midfielder managed one goal in 23 appearances, which means that instead of stepping up to replace Phillips after his exit in 2022, the former Chelsea man was only deemed good enough for the third division.
He then failed to score in 20 League One games for MK Dons on loan in the 2023/24 campaign. At the end of that season, Daniel Farke did not opt to renew the English gem’s contract and he left on a free transfer, eventually joining Stockport County in the third tier.
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Including Bamford: The three Leeds players Farke must cash in on in January
The Leeds United head coach must consider cashing in all three of these players.
The 22-year-old, who has provided three assists in 13 League One games this season, never managed to build on his early success in emerging as a first-team option under Bielsa as a teenager, but still has plenty of time left in his career to work his way back to the top, even if that is now not going to be at Elland Road.
