'Misses being here' - Jesse Marsch on Kalvin Phillips ahead of Man City date at Leeds United

Phillips ended his long association with hometown club Leeds when joining City in July and the midfielder’s new club will face the Whites upon the Premier League’s resumption on Wednesday evening. Ahead of the game, Marsch has paid a glowing tribute to Phillips who has been limited to just 53 minutes of action for City amid injury setbacks.

Phillips recovered from shoulder surgery to still make Gareth Southgate’s England squad for the World Cup but the 27-year-old had to settle for two outings from the bench in Qatar before the Three Lions exited the competition to France in the quarter-finals.

Phillips then failed to make City’s squad for their return to action in last Thursday’s Carabao Cup clash at home to Liverpool and boss Pep Guardiola said the midfielder had arrived back at City "overweight.”

Marsch said of Phillips: “Kalvin was such a good player but for me he was a really likeable, heart-warming person to have around the team. He got along with everybody here, with the older players, as well was the younger players, with me as well as the academy coaches.

"He just had a way of when he walked around this building he made everybody feel at home. If you were to ask me what was the hardest part of replacing Kalvin, it was a little bit of that – making sure that we still had the feeling of what Leeds United is, what it means to be from Leeds, what the history of the club means, and that human element of what we are that we still stayed strong with that.

"That is why in the last transfer window we looked at the quality of people and character that we brought in here as much as what we thought of from their playing perspective. And I think we’ve replaced that with really good people.

"We still miss Kalvin. He came for one of our matches, Fulham, and you could see he felt the pain of losing that match with us after the match. He was still here and he missed being here. of course he misses being here, he misses the guys, he’s got a lot of great friends, this club is in his heart.

Asked about the midfielder’s City return to Elland Road, Marsch said: “When time moves on, it kind of heals in different ways. For Kalvin, it would be different if you talked about the last time he stepped off the pitch here at Elland Road and what that feeling would be like and what it’s like now.

"However, clearly he will have a strong attachment to the fans, to his family. He would have matches here and there would be 30 family members in the stadium. I think you could multiply that by two for this match. This felt like he belonged, that this was his home.

"I’m sure that even when he made the decision to leave that was a big part of the difficulty. Coming back, I think he will revisit those emotions and I think it will bring the best out of him. That is the kind of person he is.”