Marcelo Bielsa hails maturity of Leeds United stalwart Kalvin Phillips in Nottingham Forest draw
Kalvin Phillips showed 'maturity' in the way he walked a red card tightrope during the 1-1 draw with Nottingham Forest, according to his boss.
Leeds United head coach Marcelo Bielsa was delighted with the way the midfielder went about his business after a 27th minute caution for clattering Tiago Silva.
It was the only time Phillips arrived late, having completely nullified the Forest man from the off, and there was a sigh of relief around Elland Road when the colour of the card was yellow, not red.
But Phillips wasn't deterred from shackling the Forest playmaker and stuck to his task, cleverly avoiding the temptation to foul him.
Eventually, Forest were forced to remove Silva on 57 minutes.
"It's a sign of the maturity of Kalvin that he played a lot of the game with a yellow card," said Bielsa.
"He never took any risks to leave the pitch."
And what Phillips did on the ball impressed Bielsa as well.
The 23-year-old, who is due to sit down with the club to begin negotiations for a new contract, had a higher passing accuracy percentage than any other outfield Leeds player.
"The play, the circulation of the ball between the two centre-backs and Phillips, when you have a lot of time on the ball you have more possibility of making mistakes," said the Argentine coach.
"In this game we didn't see mistakes."