Leeds United struck gold with academy star who now earns £150k-a-week: View | OneFootball

He will undoubtedly go down as one of the best players the club has produced

Kalvin Phillips is undoubtedly one of the brightest talents to come out of the Leeds United academy in recent years.

The Yorkshire club have a strong track record of producing talent, but few have done quite as well as the midfielder.

Although he has not had the easiest time since leaving Elland Road, there is no doubting his quality.

Something of a modern legend to the Whites, he will take a significant place in the list of names to come through Thorp Arch.

He gained a strong reputation in Leeds’ senior setup

At one stage in his career, Phillips was rated as one of the hottest midfield prospects.

He particularly made a name for himself under the guidance of Marcelo Bielsa, who guided Leeds to a Championship title with Phillips in the side and then established themselves as a stubborn Premier League side.

At his best, Phillips is a battling midfielder who can disrupt opposition attacks and will not stop running for anything.

He clocked up 234 appearances for his hometown club, netting 14 goals and providing 13 assists across those games.

He was so highly rated for his work at Leeds that he even managed to break into the England team, rare for a player at a recently promoted side, picking up 31 caps following his debut in 2020.

Manchester City ensured Leeds struck gold with Phillips

His exploits at Leeds attracted attention from a club in Manchester City at the very top of English, and world, football.

The Pep Guardiola-led side forked out a base sum of £42million for Phillips in 2022 and put him on a six-year contract, which Capology estimate to be worth £150,000 per week.

It was a sum of money that isn't flowing to a club like Leeds every day — they had truly hit the jackpot with Phillips.

But it would quickly become apparent that the former Leeds man was not the right fit for City, going on to make just a handful of appearances over the next couple of years.

An initial loan spell at West Ham United under David Moyes was intended to reboot his career, but more than anything it just exposed a player low on confidence following his tough time at the Etihad.

Undeterred, the midfielder later jumped back in with promoted side Ipswich Town, as he tries to get his once-glistening career back on track.

His best years may be at Leeds

There is no escaping the fact that his move to City hasn’t worked out, but it must not be forgotten how adored he was at Elland Road, and he was more than deserving of that adoration.

Now in his late 20s, it seems like those years in Yorkshire, at his hometown club, may go down as the best of his career.

A return one day would be the dream reunion, a place where Phillips already has the crowd on side, who will no doubt will him on to rediscover the player they know he is.

But a substantial and unrealistic pay cut would be required for that to happen while Phillips still has some of his prime years ahead of him.

At the end of his lengthy contract, who knows what lies ahead, but there is no doubting Phillips was one of the best products of the Leeds academy, and will still be a hero to many of their fans.