Marcelo Bielsa has been credited with a lot in his three years at Leeds United, but the past week has seen England’s possible surge to Euro 2020 glory planted at the door to his granny flat too.
Kalvin Phillips has dominated the England news cycle since setting out his stall as the man of the match in the opening 20 minutes of Sunday’s clash with Croatia.
Of course, it’s tongue in cheek to say Phillips’s performances alone will suddenly unlock the door to a first major international trophy for 55 years, but the wider point around the player he has become under Bielsa’s guidance stands.
It’s not just the overall player Phillips has become, predominantly as a defensive midfielder, it’s the new position he adapted to on Sunday.
Not many people would have honestly admitted before Sunday they could see Phillips being the man of the match in that company during his first major tournament.
You would have had more saying it if he had played as a defensive midfielder, but next to nobody even dreaming of him running a game in any other position.
Bielsa believed Phillips could do that job before anyone saw Sunday’s game. He opened the door to that possibility, to that next step he may well see Phillips take, in the closing weeks of the season.
It was in the latter stages of the Manchester United draw at Elland Road we saw Robin Koch enter the fray and play as the side’s defensive midfielder.
Phillips was not replaced. He shuffled forward into that advanced role we saw a glimpse of on Sunday. Bielsa has already started testing out his own version of a box-to-box Phillips.
Bielsa spoke on the matter directly too.
“It's an option, but I will take more time to verify,” he said. “For Kalvin, it's easy to play as a defensive midfielder or to defend as a centre-back, but to play as a mixed midfielder, which means in front of the defensive midfielder, but behind the offensive midfielder, is a position which he has already played.
“He has also done this for the English national team. For us, it is also an option, less verified for us because in that position we have Dallas and Klich, which I have positioned in front of him in this position, but of course, he can be an option here.”
The groundwork is there for Bielsa to open the door on Phillips’s next chapter if that’s where he wants to take it, but in the current Leeds system it seems like there’s plenty still for the Wortley native to achieve as a defensive midfielder.
