Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
CRUEL FOR KAL
Phillips’ shoulder injury means Elland Road star is out for at least six weeks and England will suffer too
KALVIN PHILLIPS has been ruled out for six weeks with a shoulder injury in a blow for Leeds and England.
Midfielder Phillips hurt his shoulder in Monday night’s defeat to Wolves at Elland Road and will miss at least five games for Leeds, including the clashes with Aston Villa, Arsenal and Everton.
The star, who has played in all of England’s matches since making his debut against Denmark last month, will also sit out the final two Nations League games against Belgium and Iceland.
The 24-year-old does not need surger y and has started his rehabilitation at the club’s Thorp Arch training ground.
Phillips deflected Raul Jimenez’s shot into his own net for Wolves’ winner and skipper Luke Ayling claims that Leeds still have their Premier League L-plates up.
They failed to turn first-half domination into goals and Ayling (right) said: “We’re still learning.
We’re only five games into a new season and I think we’ve learnt that we need to take our chances when they come along.
“I think we started slow in the second half. You can’t afford to do that in the Premier League – and we got punished.
“It’s a little lesson learnt, but we can’t sit around and dwell on it for too long, we’ve got a game on Friday against Aston Villa.”
“It ’s a v e r y q u i c k turnaround, which is nice, and we’ll put it to bed and move on.”
Leeds’ profligacy is nothing new, but they are discovering they y cannot get away with th missing chances like they did in the Championship.
Stuart Dallas agreed that Leeds must be more clinical and says they have to respond when they make the testing trip to face early high-flyers Villa on Friday night.
“When you’re playing teams like Wolves, you’ve got to capitalise when you’re on top and we didn’t do that,” said the Northern Ireland international. “You learn in every game, no matter what l e vel y ou’re pl ay ing at, y ou continue to learn and we can take a lot from this. We’re four or five games into the season now.
“We came ca into this game look looking to win it. We co couldn’t do that and n now we’v e got to bounce back on Friday against a team f lying high in the t table, full of co confidence and playing real really well.”
An d Dal l a s al s o s ai d Wolves showed Leeds that game management is crucial.
Dallas added: “You’ve got to give Wolves credit as well. They came here and, the way they set up, they had a game plan and it worked. “There were plenty of positives, but there’s certainly stuff we can work on as well.”