According to Wayne Veysey of Football Insider, Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham still remain interested in signing Leeds United’s midfield lynchpin, Kalvin Phillips with the North London club looking to build on interest from last summer.
Leeds United’s reliance on Kalvin Phillips was no more starkly displayed than their performances whilst absent for three games through a red-card suspension and his past two performances since returning. He’s a key player to the system.
Below, is a compilation video of Phillips at his imperious best against Bristol City in a game where the man the fans call the ‘Yorkshire Pirlo’ was part of a dominant Whites display.
Kalvin Phillips vs. Bristol City. #LUFC #YorkshirePirlo pic.twitter.com/v0a8Gr8Bo3
— LUFCHD (@LUFCHD) February 17, 2020
Since breaking through into the Leeds United first-team, Wortley-born Phillips has gone on to make 173 appearances for his home-town club, scoring 11 goals and providing 10 assists. He has also been reinvented by Marcelo Bielsa, the legendary Argentinian converting him from a box-to-box midfielder into a deep-lying playmaking midfield enforcer.
Football Insider’s Veysey says that Mourinho’s side “will join the race to sign” 24-year-old Phillips in the summer under one proviso – that Leeds United fail to gain promotion from the Sky Bet Championship this season. This news has come via a ‘Tottenham source’ who indicated that Phillips still forms a part of their thinking as they assess targets for the midfield anchorman role.
That proviso of Leeds failing to gain promotion is, as Spurs are fully aware, the sticking point to any future deal for Phillips. Veysey writes that Mourinho’s side “are aware that a successful pursuit of Phillips is out of the question” if the Whites gain promotion to the Premier League but equally are aware that failure in this respect will lead to something of a scramble for his services.
