Medical failed

Kalvin Phillips’ leg is severely dead

Written by: Rob Conlon
Artwork by: Eamonn Dalton
A collage of Gareth Southgate with his arm around our Kalvin, next to our Kalvin getting treatment during England vs Germany

​​I’m no medical expert, but if I was a Manchester City executive watching England’s 1-1 draw with Germany on Tuesday night, I’d have been worrying as Kalvin Phillips limped off the pitch ten minutes into the game. Not only was Phillips’ leg injured, Gareth Southgate later confirmed the leg was dead. Dead! And not just dead. According to Southgate, “It’s quite a severe dead leg.” Quite severe! If City director of football Txiki Begiristain is reading, I’d load up Football Manager and get looking down the shortlist mate.

Dead limbs seem to affect footballers differently to the rest of the population. We were all given a dead arm or leg in the school playground at some point of our education. It sort of gave you a dull ache for a little while, and then before the end of lunch you were fully recovered and trying to kill one of the perpetrator’s limbs yourself. When Raphinha was given a dead leg by Fernandinho, by comparison, he ended up in hospital thinking he might need it amputated. City trying to replace Fernandinho with Phillips, only for Kalvin’s leg to be too dead for him to sign, would be karmic justice.

Phillips was back in the England team against Germany after playing the final eleven minutes of the defeat to Hungary as a substitute. He started England’s first attack by leaving Thomas Muller on the floor by the touchline and stealing the ball. It was his only involvement in the game, but WhoScored failed to register the tackle, only the pass, no doubt proof an anti-Leeds bias has seeped into Big Data too. Then he got kneed in the thigh trying to tackle Germany defender Nico Schlotterbeck, laid down on the floor looking quite hurt, hobbled around for a bit trying to run the injury off like we were all told to back in the playground, then laid down again with Raphinha’s fears presumably running through his head, like Arctic Monkeys’ Matt Helders being put under anaesthetic for an operation on his broken hand while listening to the surgeon joking about Def Leppard getting on fine with a one-armed drummer.

While Twitter panicked and my phone buzzed with concerned WhatsApp messages, I was feeling conflicted. I signed Schlotterbeck for Leeds on my last relapse into a Football Manager save and developed an affinity with him. He currently plays for Freiburg, consigned by Peter Drury in commentary to “unfashionable” status. If Drury thinks Freiburg are unfashionable, he’s clearly not seen Schlotterbeck’s predecessor at centre-back, Robin Koch. Mainly I felt conflicted because a severe dead leg, coming off the back of a season ruined by further injuries, might just be the perfect kind of innocuous knock that delays a major transfer for a little while. Southgate says he’s not sure how long Phillips will be out for. Perhaps Leeds can just tell City they’re going to have to wait all summer to find out whether it needs amputating or not, so they might as well come back next year.

Mainly I just felt sad for Phillips. After floating through his first season in the Premier League all the way to the final of the Euros, winning England’s Player of the Year award, 2021/22 has been a campaign to put in the bin. Like Raphinha, he must be desperate for a holiday, spending the rest of his Tuesday night with a bag of ice on his thigh, scrolling through the Insta stories of his teammates enjoying some downtime: Jackie Harrison living his sickeningly idyllic life doing kick ups by a swimming pool with a can in his hand; Cry Summerville TikToking around Dubai on a jet ski, garbed in Burberry; Luke Ayling pleading for help from ‘anybody in the passport office’, like a man who regrets not leaving it in the hotel room safe. Get your leg rested, Kalvin, get yourself on holiday as long as your passport is still in date, then get yourself back to Wortley where we can look after you. ⬢

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