Kalvin Phillips discloses what Thomas Christiansen told Leeds squad about last season’s capitulation

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Leeds United managed to finish outside of the Championship play-off spots despite looking nailed on heading into the final weeks of the season.

Kalvin Phillips has suggested to the Yorkshire Evening Post that Thomas Christiansen simply told the Leeds squad to forget about their finish to last season when he arrived, and admitted that the Whites’ capitulation still baffles him.

Following Leeds’ win over Brighton with eight games of the season to go last term, Garry Monk’s men were fourth in the Championship eight points clear of Fulham – who occupied seventh spot in the table.

However, one win and four defeats in their final eight games saw the Whites fall dramatically to the point that only an unfathomable goal difference swing on the final day was required to give them the slightest chance of sneaking back into the top six.

Kalvin Phillips was sent off during Leeds’ previous meeting with Fulham

And ahead of the game against the Cottagers tonight, Phillips admitted that the team’s dramatic decline still makes little sense to him.

“You always think like that; we just didn’t get the right results at the end of the season,” he said, as reported by the Yorkshire Evening Post.

“Last year Fulham were one of the best teams I played and they went on a really good run. There’s always regrets and stuff like that but you’ve just got to carry on.”

While some of the squad may feel somewhat scarred by the finish, the situation appears to have been helped by the numbers of changes to have taken place around Elland Road since.

One of those changes has been the arrival of Christiansen, who replaced Monk earlier in the summer, and Phillips has suggested that the new boss had some simple advice regarding last season’s events.

“The new manager mentioned last season to us but said ‘forget about it’,” Phillips added.

“That’s what we’re trying to do and I think we’ve done it. Last year was still a great starting point, to have the belief in the squad. We know what we can do now and we know how high we can get in the table.

Given the number of changes around the club in such a short space of time, it will surely be easier for the team to forget what happened, as Christiansen suggests, as the conclusion to the previous campaign seems such a long time to go.

But while it may currently be easier for the side to put last term behind them, the challenge will come if they get themselves into a similar position this year.