Leeds United face a tough task this summer to keep Kalvin Phillips and Raphinha at Elland Road, with giants of European football circling the club and looking to steal their stars. Both players remain under contract and are unlikely to cause trouble in forcing a move, but the financial clout of the likes of Manchester City or the allure of Champions League football that comes at Barcelona may prove too much to turn down.
Those two clubs are the ones most heavily linked, with Premier League champions Man City understood to be preparing a bid for Phillips while Barcelona have made clear their intention to sign Raphinha - despite admitting €500 million to save the club from financial despair. And while both officials and fans in West Yorkshire understand their heroes desire to test themselves on the European stage, it is those in charge that must dig in their heels.
Andrea Radrizzani has been a long-time admirer of Leicester City’s transfer model. Since winning the league in miraculous circumstances during the 2015/2016 season the club have offloaded one of most prized assets for a huge fee each summer, using the money from the sale and shrewd recruitment to unearth high potential in under-appreciated targets.
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"I want to change Leeds United to become a destination, not a transition and a club to build your CV," Radrizzani told Forbes in December 2021. "We were able to bring our revenue from £36 million to £200 million this year [which] is synonymous of the hard work behind the [scenes at the] club.
“[We] will have to sell maybe one or two key players and buy other talents coming up like Leicester did in the past so we need to be humble and realistic of our means [so that] we grow gradually step by step."
The summer after they won the title, the Foxes sold N’Golo Kante to Chelsea for £32 million, using less than half of that (£15.8 million) to sign Wilfred N’didi from Genk. Danny Drinkwater went to Stamford Bridge the following year for £34 million, with Harry Maguire arriving from Hull City for just £12 million. In the summer of 2018, Riyad Mahrez went to Manchester City for £60 million and that money funded the incomings James Maddison, Ricardo Pereira and Caglar Soyuncu - the list goes on.
The key aspect of this model - and one which is particularly pertinent for Leeds this summer - is that none of those summers saw more than one key player depart. Leicester fought off fierce interest for Mahrez and Jamie Vardy in the summer when they sold Kante, and they did the same again with Ben Chilwell during the season they sold Harry Maguire to Manchester United for £80 million.
Those in charge at the King Power Stadium have established their willingness to sell one top asset each summer and they will not budge on another, no matter how much interest they fight off. And if Radrizzani wants Leeds to progress in the same way that his role model club have, shifting to consistently compete for European football, then he must do the same.
Raphinha and Phillips have already - if you believe everything written - offered themselves to clubs, tried to force a move, agreed personal terms, asked for a new contract at Leeds, been expected to leave and expected to stay. It is a trend that will continue throughout.
And while it is likely that one may go, it is imperative that both don’t. Leeds are in a state of transition this summer, with Jesse Marsch able to fully implement his playing style on a group that have spent three-and-a-half seasons wedded to the Marcelo Bielsa way.
The Whites boss will want to bring in his own players - quite literally, in the form of Brenden Aaronson and Rasmus Kristensen, who both played under the American at RB Salzburg - and the ageing core of the promotion side will start to be phased out. Keeping one of the club’s most influential players involved while changing the group around them maintains an identity.
Losing both Raphinha and Phillips doesn’t guarantee disaster, but the club Radrizzani has tried to emulate have proved that it’s not worth risking it - not even for the extra £60 million.
Which of the two the club are willing to offload remains to be seen, with Kalvin Phillips’ local connection weighed up against Raphinha’s ability to win games single-handedly. But if Leeds are to follow Leicester’s proven model, then whoever leaves must leave for the right fee - and it must only be one of them.
