The Leeds fans in the Transfer Tavern have been reacting to comments from the club’s 22-year-old midfielder, Kalvin Phillips. The Leeds United youth product has been defending the club’s misfiring forward, Caleb Ekuban as his miss moved proved costly away at Fulham in the 2-0 defeat on Tuesday. Speaking to the Yorkshire Evening Post, Phillips claimed that in training Ekuban scored that chance nine times out of ten.
"Nine times out of 10 he scores those in training." Kalvin Phillips sticks up for Caleb Ekuban after the striker's bad miss at Fulham on Tuesday:https://t.co/XQXMD3Kjcu
— Phil Hay (@PhilHay_) April 5, 2018
The comments from Phillips have prompted plenty of reaction from the Leeds faithful as opinions have been divided on Ekuban. The striker scored his first Championship goal in his 14th attempt in the club’s win over Bolton on Friday. Despite his goal against Bolton, he couldn’t carry the goalscoring past the weekend and into Tuesday as his horrible miss whilst one-on-one with Fulham ‘keeper Marcus Bettinelli led to Slavisa Jokanovic’s side scoring on the counter-attack at the other end.
Caleb Ekuban will no doubt be feeling sorry for himself after missing such a glorious chance to equalise, although his form sums up Leeds second half of the season so far. The club have won just two games in 2018 and have dropped from the playoffs spots down to 13th. The Whites came into the season with high hopes of finishing the campaign in at least a playoff place and even occupied the Championship’s top-spot for two weeks in September. However, results and the atmosphere at Elland Road have soured in the new year as the club find themselves staring down the barrel at another year in England’s second tier.
You can read the fans’ reaction to Phillips’ defence of Ekuban here:
https://twitter.com/leahwallerx/status/981807003797544960
People here can sod off. People want him to fail. Good on phillips for standing up for him. Our so called fans would rather see our team alienate him and have no team spirit whatsoever. At the game he was so distraught and players flocked round him to pick him up. Amazing to see
— Carl Withersea (@CarlosLUFC1994) April 5, 2018
https://twitter.com/DerbyshireWhite/status/981809954418982912
He needs to concentrate on his own performances.
— Frank Bullers (@BullersInfo) April 5, 2018
https://twitter.com/Legit_By/status/981793696042700800
https://twitter.com/jwh1982/status/981837061736095745
https://twitter.com/InvisibleTao/status/981794228404670464
Practice makes perfect, I would venture to suggest. But I'm sure everyone knows that already.
— Stuart Grant (@McClumsy84) April 5, 2018
