Negotiations to renew Kalvin Phillips’ contract are proving difficult, but he’s not trying to force a move, despite continued interest from Aston Villa.
The 23 year-old is currently on a mere £10,000 a week at Elland Road, which lags behind a few others in the squad. Notably Bamford and Casilla, who both had their critics among the Leeds support as our promotion challenge ran out of steam at the end of last season.
So with Phillips being a key member of the side, the club began talks with the player and his agent a couple of weeks ago to agree an increase, even though his current deal still has two years to run. But it seems that the two parties are some way apart in their views on what his next salary should be.
This has led to the ever-unreliable Sun to claim that Phillips is trying to "force a move” to a Premier League club, and that if necessary he’s willing to sit on his contract for another two years and then leave on a free transfer. And Football Insider say he’s tempted by the prospect of Premier League wages, with Aston Villa prepared to pay him £60,000 a week.
Villa have already offered £15m including bonuses, but this falls a long way short of Leeds’ valuation, and as Villa have already spent heavily this summer they are not willing to increase this figure. So any potential transfer is deadlocked, leading the Sun to speculate that Phillips is now trying to force Leeds to sell.
At various times Tottenham, Bournemouth and Wolves have also been reported to be interested in Phillips should Villa fail to secure his signature, but today the Yorkshire Post have assured us that rumours of his imminent departure have been greatly exaggerated.
The YEP understands that although the Leeds-born player "harbours ambitions to play in the Premier League and there’s no guarantee that will happen with Leeds, he’s not currently pushing for an Elland Road exit.”
So the most likely scenario is that his current transfer talks will continue, and he’ll remain at the club for the coming season. Then all will depend on whether we go up. If we make the promised land of the Premier League, our new-found riches will enable Leeds to give him a big increase in his current deal.
But if we don’t go up and the club doesn't agree a contract extension with Phillips, we will have to sell him in 12 months time, to avoid the risk of losing him for nothing in the summer of 2021.