Leeds United are next in action on January 28th against Milwall.
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink has claimed that Jamie Shackleton should be the guy to replace Kalvin Phillips in the middle of the park as the Leeds man is now suspended for three matches.
Phillips was sent off during Leeds 1-0 defeat at QPR on Saturday and he will now miss their next three matches – Millwall, Wigan and Nottingham Forest.
There isn’t an obvious replacement for Phillips because he holds such a key and important role in the middle of the park. But one player from the ‘youth’ has been touted.
Speaking to Sky Sports Football (18/01/20 at 2:40 pm), Hasselbaink backed Jamie Shackleton to replace Phillips in the middle of the park.
“Forshaw is still injured,” Hasselbaink told Sky Sports. “You don’t have the strength in depth. Who’s going to play there? You have to take somebody from the youth.
“It will be Shackleton [to replace Phillips] or somebody like that because they don’t have anybody else. The manager likes to work with a small squad. And when you have problems like this it works against you.”
Shackleton has been used by Marcelo Bielsa this season and he last started away at West Brom earlier on in the campaign, but he is yet to see any minutes on the field since the turn of the year.
The positive for Shackleton is that Bielsa rates him very highly and in September he was raving about the youngster and how he makes the ‘team work’ regardless of who Leeds are playing, as quoted by Leeds Live.
Given that Leeds are no longer in the FA Cup, they now have a big rest period coming up, which will be very useful to the players. They are next in action on January 28th against Milwall.
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