Leeds United have had to recover quickly in recent times when notable players have exited Elland Road.
Last summer, after heartbreakingly losing the Championship playoff final, the eventual promotion winners had to wave goodbye – through gritted teeth – to both Georginio Rutter and Crysencio Summerville as Premier League moves awaited the entertaining duo.
Not even the added security of being in the elite division has saved Leeds from having to part ways with some star assets, however, with Kalvin Phillips leaving his boyhood club behind for Manchester City in the summer of 2022.
Unfortunately, the one-time £40m buy has struggled ever since leaving West Yorkshire behind, but there might well be some green shoots appearing at the Etihad now for the forgotten midfielder…
Phillips’ turbulent stay at City
Amazingly, despite last featuring for Pep Guardiola’s men way back in October of 2023, Phillips could now have been gifted a chance at redemption.
Indeed, it has emerged that the Leeds-born midfielder has now been included in City’s Premier League squad for the rest of the 2025/26 season, having presumably impressed in flashes out on loan at Ipswich Town last campaign.
It was far from a standout loan experience for the 29-year-old, but he did hammer home this effort at Portman Road during his 22-game stay to be remembered somewhat fondly, away from also winning 3.5 duels on average across his 17 Premier League outings in Suffolk, as per Sofascore.
While Guardiola’s surprise inclusion of Phillips will give the 31-time England international some hope that he can rewrite his City narrative, it’s far from being conclusive proof that he will start plenty of City games moving forward, having only ever completed a full 90 minutes in the Premier League for his current employers a meagre two times.
Phillips will just have to hope his ordeal in Manchester doesn’t get any bleaker, with a worry now that this other ex-Leeds ace is experiencing a similar fall from grace to that of the 29-year-old, as his first-team minutes also continue to be minimal in the tough division.
The ex-Leeds star in danger of being the next Phillips
Thankfully, for both the aforementioned Rutter and Summerville, they have taken to the pressures of the Premier League a lot more steadily than Phillips.
Rutter is already up to eight goals and five assists for his new employers Brighton and Hove Albion, whilst his Dutch counterpart has also managed to successfully battle back from injury difficulties at West Ham United to collect two assists during the infancy of the new season.
On the contrary, former Leeds homegrown product Archie Gray has found the leap from the EFL to the Premier League to be a daunting one, having moved to Tottenham Hotspur just last summer after a whirlwind ascent into the Whites’ first-team spotlight.
Daniel Farke, who still occupies the Elland Road dug-out, would be the first manager to get a tune out of the adaptable 19-year-old in the senior ranks, with Gray previously being branded as a “very intelligent” talent by ex-Leeds great Marcelo Bielsa when he was just 15 years of age.
He would be showered with further elaborate praise after making a name for himself in the first team at his boyhood club, as seen in Sky Sports’ Andy Hinchcliffe heralding the teenage sensation as “extraordinary” during his breakout 2023/24 season, which saw him make 52 appearances in total.
Missing out on promotion that same season, then saw Premier League clubs unsurprisingly line up for his coveted services, with the £30m eventually forked out by Spurs to land Gray not looking like a rash amount to spend, either, considering analyst Ben Mattinson was wildly suggesting that the 19-year-old could go on to be a “future £100m” asset.
Gray’s PL numbers at Spurs
Stat
Gray
Games played
29
Games started
20
Goals scored
0
Assists
0
Stats by the Premier League
At the moment, Mattinson’s praise hasn’t been backed up by Gray’s performances in North London, with new Spurs boss Thomas Frank only handing him one league start so far this season, having started 19 league contests under Ange Postecoglou. He wasn’t even named as a substitute for Spurs’ big 3-0 win over West Ham United, either.
It does feel now that Gray jumped ship from Leeds to pastures new in the Premier League a bit prematurely – especially as Farke’s men are now competing alongside Spurs – with an additional worry that the teenager is already being swallowed whole by the pressures of his top-flight environment, in a similar way to Phillips.
Gray will hope he can live up to his previous high praise down the line, but if his minutes continue to deplete, he might well just be viewed as another forgotten figure of Leeds’ past that struggled to cut it in the big time.