Kalvin Phillips, Raphinha and how Leeds recover from selling the family silver - The Athletic 28/6/22

By Phil Hay

A summer like this at Leeds United has been coming. It was never the done thing to speak too preemptively or explicitly about what is now occurring at Elland Road, but at various points since promotion two years ago the club have touched on the PR battle awaiting them: the sale of the family silver.

They have spoken quite openly about the Leicester City model and any amount of digging into that finds large transfer fees at the heart of it. Sell and reinvest, sell and reinvest, which, as it happens, could be precisely the story of this summer at Leeds. One big asset is going and another is likely to follow. You might call it the Leicester model on steroids, because Leicester’s policy was traditionally to limit major outgoings to one in each window — a selling strategy with clear limits.

Whether Leeds intended to lose Kalvin Phillips and Raphinha in the same close season is doubtful, and Raphinha’s position is more opaque than Phillips’, but the fact that the club have been discussing replacements for both players indicates that the stable door was not bolted. They thought another year from Phillips was possible until it transpired that Manchester City were serious about him and Phillips was serious about them. They had more expectation of losing Raphinha and the only hurdle to him moving on now, given that Barcelona are relatively destitute, is someone paying the right price. Arsenal were planning to try again for him this week. Other clubs, such as Chelsea, are thinking about it. The whole saga would peter out if the market thought that Phillips going meant Raphinha was not for sale.

The longer these processes go on, the more a club begins to think. City’s move for Phillips has been fairly rapid, the interest in Raphinha more of a slow and speculative burn, but the drip effect of chatter about players departing gradually turns the conversation inside a club’s recruitment department from the negative impact of losing big assets towards the question of what they could do with the money. It is due diligence to analyse possible replacements and, over time, alternative options start to appeal. If Raphinha goes and Leeds do go for the forward Charles De Ketelaere from Club Bruges, leaving money left over and scope to bring in another winger too, who wins? Or more to the point, does anybody actually lose?

Transition is everywhere at Leeds and the club are comprehensively into a world of change. They are no longer Marcelo Bielsa’s domain and the club are reshaping the squad he left behind. Phillips, the bedrock of Bielsa’s team, is about to leave. Raphinha, as good a signing as any in the Bielsa era, has bidders around him too. The baton is passing on other positions, such as right-back with the arrival of Rasmus Kristensen, and numbers are increasing. The way they see it at Elland Road, Phillips and Raphinha moving on could mean a total of six players coming in: Kristensen, Brenden Aaronson and Marc Roca have already signed, a midfielder, a winger and a forward to follow. It will not be the same as it was before but, post-Bielsa, nothing was going to be the same. Even little things like a new partnership with injury data specialists Zone7 show a change of operational direction.

With footballers like Phillips and Raphinha, though, it is not just about replacing their craft. There is the matter of temperament too. Over the years, Leeds have eaten players who failed to cope with the environment. Plenty will tell you it can be difficult playing for Leeds — a club where expectancy and an unforgiving air built up by long stretches of under-achievement devours confidence and performance levels. One of the best things that can be said about Phillips is that playing for Leeds did not look difficult for him. His roots in the city did not weigh on him at all. He was nerveless and hard to fluster, cool and inwardly confident. Raphinha is cut from the same cloth — either able to feed off the crowd or so good that everything around him washes off his back. Talent is visible. Character can be less tangible. But season after season, Leeds always need it.

Raphinha was the first world-class player to walk through the door at Elland Road for the best part of two decades. Bielsa was a marvel and Phillips was the embodiment of the fan on the pitch — the footballer the crowd saw themselves in. To lose two, or three, of them in a matter of months is a huge cultural shift, creating anxiety about the impact of those changes. People knew what they had and liked what they had. There will be a pensive period now as Leeds paint the picture of what is coming next. This window could be good or bad for them. That is the nature of transition. But as a club they will be different, whatever the rest of the summer brings.

Now, everything comes down to recruitment — the wisdom of it and the success in landing darts in the right areas of the board. There is no romance in losing the crown jewels but it is undeniably the case that without them signing new contracts, neither Phillips nor Raphinha will be worth more money than they are now. If they play their hand well, Leeds can come out of the window with more depth and more balance in their squad — two things they undoubtedly require. Phillips gets his move and perhaps, in time, Raphinha gets his. Leeds take the money and emerge from the summer unscathed. That was the point of the Leicester model: that when done properly, it worked for everybody.