Jesse Marsch claims Manchester City midfielder Kalvin Phillips 'missing Leeds'

is a

academy graduate who left the club after 8 years and joined

last summer.

The 27-year-old midfielder has struggled with a shoulder injury this season and has just played in 4 matches for Manchester City.

Ahead of Wednesday’s game at Elland Road, Jesse Marsch claimed that Phillips still misses Leeds.

"Clearly he will have a strong attachment to the fans, his family being here,"

Marsch told reporters.

"He would have 30 family members at matches here and you could multiply that by two probably for this match. If you asked me what was the hardest part about replacing Kalvin, it was a little bit of that, making sure we still had the feeling of what Leeds United is.

"And I think we've replaced that with really good people. We still miss Kalvin. He came for one of our matches, Fulham, and you could see he felt the pain of losing that match. It was like he was still here and he missed being here. Of course he misses being here, he misses the guys. He's got a lot of great friends. This club is in his heart."

It is unlikely Pep Guardiola plays Phillips against his former team on Wednesday after criticising him for returning from the Qatar World Cup overweight last week. He made two substitute appearances in Qatar.

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