Lawal Israel
Phillips made his long-awaited comeback from a hamstring injury against Southampton 2nd April, coming on as a 66th-minute substitute for Mateusz Klich. He continued his comeback against Watford on Saturday.
The midfielder started the match on the bench, but just before the hour mark he replaced Klich in the starting line-up for Leeds’ 3-0 victory.
With over two weeks to go until Leeds United’s next match against Crystal Palace (on Monday, April 25), Marsch believes the break will allow Phillips to make further progress, although the head coach is keen to avoid pressuring the Yorkshire Pirlo.
“Once we knew Adam couldn’t go I didn’t mind because Robin has been fantastic in training,” said Marsch.
“I thought Robin was a real presence in the midfield and won a lot of aerial duels, collected a lot of balls, really tactically moved with the game well, helped on set-pieces.
“I thought Robin was very good, so that was great to see.
“And then obviously with Kalvin not at 100 per cent, we want to continue to push him to integrate within the team but it’ll come.
“The worst thing, even with the situation with Patrick, I felt so bad after his injury and I certainly don’t want to repeat any of those mistakes with anyone else.
“So we want to make sure Kalvin’s as close to 100 per cent as he can be.
