Kalvin Phillips’ leg is severely dead - The Square Ball 8/6/22
MEDICAL FAILED
Written by: Rob Conlon
I’m no medical expert, but if I was a Manchester City
executive watching England’s 1-1 draw with Germany on Tuesday night, I’d have
been worrying as Kalvin Phillips limped off the pitch ten minutes into the
game. Not only was Phillips’ leg injured, Gareth Southgate later confirmed the
leg was dead. Dead! And not just dead. According to Southgate, “It’s quite a
severe dead leg.” Quite severe! If City director of football Txiki Begiristain
is reading, I’d load up Football Manager and get looking down the shortlist
mate.
Dead limbs seem to affect footballers differently to the
rest of the population. We were all given a dead arm or leg in the school
playground at some point of our education. It sort of gave you a dull ache for
a little while, and then before the end of lunch you were fully recovered and
trying to kill one of the perpetrator’s limbs yourself. When Raphinha was given
a dead leg by Fernandinho, by comparison, he ended up in hospital thinking he
might need it amputated. City trying to replace Fernandinho with Phillips, only
for Kalvin’s leg to be too dead for him to sign, would be karmic justice.
Phillips was back in the England team against Germany after
playing the final eleven minutes of the defeat to Hungary as a substitute. He
started England’s first attack by leaving Thomas Muller on the floor by the
touchline and stealing the ball. It was his only involvement in the game, but
WhoScored failed to register the tackle, only the pass, no doubt proof an
anti-Leeds bias has seeped into Big Data too. Then he got kneed in the thigh
trying to tackle Germany defender Nico Schlotterbeck, laid down on the floor
looking quite hurt, hobbled around for a bit trying to run the injury off like
we were all told to back in the playground, then laid down again with
Raphinha’s fears presumably running through his head, like Arctic Monkeys’ Matt
Helders being put under anaesthetic for an operation on his broken hand while
listening to the surgeon joking about Def Leppard getting on fine with a
one-armed drummer.
While Twitter panicked and my phone buzzed with concerned
WhatsApp messages, I was feeling conflicted. I signed Schlotterbeck for Leeds
on my last relapse into a Football Manager save and developed an affinity with
him. He currently plays for Freiburg, consigned by Peter Drury in commentary to
“unfashionable” status. If Drury thinks Freiburg are unfashionable, he’s
clearly not seen Schlotterbeck’s predecessor at centre-back, Robin Koch. Mainly
I felt conflicted because a severe dead leg, coming off the back of a season
ruined by further injuries, might just be the perfect kind of innocuous knock
that delays a major transfer for a little while. Southgate says he’s not sure
how long Phillips will be out for. Perhaps Leeds can just tell City they’re
going to have to wait all summer to find out whether it needs amputating or
not, so they might as well come back next year.
Mainly I just felt sad for Phillips. After floating through
his first season in the Premier League all the way to the final of the Euros,
winning England’s Player of the Year award, 2021/22 has been a campaign to put
in the bin. Like Raphinha, he must be desperate for a holiday, spending the
rest of his Tuesday night with a bag of ice on his thigh, scrolling through the
Insta stories of his teammates enjoying some downtime: Jackie Harrison living
his sickeningly idyllic life doing kick ups by a swimming pool with a can in his
hand; Cry Summerville TikToking around Dubai on a jet ski, garbed in Burberry;
Luke Ayling pleading for help from ‘anybody in the passport office’, like a man
who regrets not leaving it in the hotel room safe. Get your leg rested, Kalvin,
get yourself on holiday as long as your passport is still in date, then get
yourself back to Wortley where we can look after you.