Phil Hay Column - It's awards season in the EFL. So who should take the honours at Leeds United?

Player of the year – Kalvin Phillips

The debate about the Premier League’s player of the year is similar to what we’re seeing at Leeds United. Several members of Manchester City’s squad would merit that award but City are doing what they did last season and the reality is that Liverpool are a different animal with Virgil van Dijk in their camp. On that basis, van Dijk might get the nod.

No-one at Elland Road can touch Pablo Hernandez’s ability and no-one is on his level when it comes to elevating the standard of Leeds’ performance but Hernandez, like City, is doing what Hernandez does and has done for the club before. Kalvin Phillips is the revelation, the player who, more than anyone else, has changed the way Leeds play and the shape of the team; the player most responsible for improving United by improving himself.

In nine months he has morphed from a nondescript central midfielder into a trademark holding mid with the poise to break out of tight areas, the vision to pass at different ranges and the physique to bully footballers with far more experience than him. He is in the Championship’s top 10 for passes and tackles, his passing accuracy stands at 82 per cent and his consistent recovery of possession was exactly what Marcelo Bielsa wanted from him. Phillips has been on the scene at Leeds for a while now but this season is his coming of age.

Hernandez, more than 10 years Phillips’ senior, comes a very narrow – and a very harsh – second and can think of himself as a victim of his own class. He is so gifted and consistent that his quality is almost taken for granted, as tends to be the case with Manchester City. In some respects, there is no bigger compliment a footballer can be paid.

Young player of the year – Bailey Peacock-Farrell

He was 21 when the season started so he falls into this category and, regardless of criticism of him, comfortably tops it. Jack Clarke produced some valuable cameos either side of Christmas and Jamie Shackleton has never played badly – part of you thinks it is unfortunate that Bielsa has not been able to make more use of Shackleton – but Peacock-Farrell stands out as occupying more than a bit-part role.

Without question the demands Bielsa made of him were a challenge. The contrast with Kiko Casilla shows how much more suited Casilla is to United’s tactics – his comfort in holding a very high line, his quick distribution and the speed with which he cuts gaps and angles when, as it did at Birmingham on Saturday, Bielsa’s style leaves space in behind – but Peacock-Farrell acclimatised well, in spite of occasional errors and some underlying scepticism.

His record speaks for itself: 28 games played and six games lost and, as much as Leeds limited him to an average of two saves a match, their organisation and structure at the back was more than adequate. There was a natural risk of him being found out or exposed but, for a keeper who had played 12 times in the Championship before Bielsa descended on Elland Road, his contribution is a feather in his cap.

Goal of the Year – Pablo Hernandez v Millwall (March 30, 2019)

Sixty-eight league goals for Leeds so far and there are some gems amongst them: Hernandez’s 16-second hit against West Brom, Mateusz Klich’s 20-yard finish away at Hillsborough, Patrick Bamford’s bullet on Tuesday night and – for drama, at least – Kemar Roofe’s late, late winners against Aston Villa and Blackburn Rovers.

But, given Bielsa’s ethos and the principles he built this season on, any choice has to focus on the precisely constructed team goals which became Leeds’ trademark early in the term.

The best of them, arguably, was Hernandez’s first strike in last month’s 3-2 win over Millwall. The attacking move itself was surgical and deadly but what preceded it – a Millwall counter-attack swept up by Liam Cooper who took a risk with the ball rather than lashing it into the stands – was typical of the mindset Bielsa promotes.

Leeds worked possession down the left, Tyler Roberts dropped deep and found Hernandez who in turn fed the ball to Klich. Klich shaped to shoot from 20 yards but sent the ball to the right wing, buying enough space for Luke Ayling to burst through and cut the ball back to Hernandez. The Spaniard arrived with perfect timing to drill it into the far corner of Millwall’s net.

In all, there were fewer than 20 seconds between Cooper reading the danger in his own box and Hernandez dispatching a shot inside Millwall’s. It is not, as Preston’s Alan Browne claimed on Monday, the media who have built Leeds up. Their reputation has grown through football like that.

Signing of the season – Marcelo Bielsa

The truth of Leeds’ first-team recruitment is that none of their signings over the past nine months would make the shortlist for player of the year. But even if they did, no individual player could have had a more profound impact on the club than Bielsa himself.

It is not even just the way in which United’s senior side has been transformed. The link with the academy is healthier than ever, the consistency of styles across different age groups is blindingly apparent, the structural changes Bielsa asked for at Thorp Arch have modernised the training ground and Leeds have come to see the value of an overarching head coach whose reputation and personality maintains discipline and commitment.

There was more to last season’s failure than Thomas Christiansen and Paul Heckingbottom but neither coach was cut out for the politics of the job. What is truly extraordinary about Bielsa is his capacity to bring people together. This is a man from Argentina who speaks broken English, had never worked in the UK or visited Leeds before and who shies away from self-promotion, yet has somehow made the public feel that he understands this club and its soul so much better than many of his predecessors. Leeds and Bielsa have been a meeting of minds, and an absolutely perfect fit.

EFL team of the year

Two Leeds players made the EFL’s official team of the year – Phillips and Cooper – and, much as Hernandez’s omission was baffling, the Championship is packed with high-performing players.

The choice for coach of the year, meanwhile, could easily be split in three between Bielsa, Chris Wilder and Daniel Farke, all of whom have pushed their teams far beyond the perceived potential of their squads, but Norwich are on the way to the title, they look likely to clear 90 points and anyone who saw the way the knives were out for Farke when Leeds wiped the floor with them at Carrow Road in August should appreciate the quality of his work. These are the YEP’s picks:

Team of the year: Randolph (Middlesbrough), Aarons (Norwich), O’Connell (Sheff Utd), Cooper (Leeds), Stevens (Sheff Utd), Phillips (Leeds), Buendia (Norwich), Benrahma (Brentford), Hernandez (Leeds), Sharp (Sheff Utd), Pukki (Norwich).

Manager of the year: Farke (Norwich).