Kalvin Phillips cannot guarantee that he would have chosen Leeds United over Ipswich Town if the former had made the play-offs last season.

Leeds were linked with a sensational purchase of Phillips before the summer transfer deadline, with the central outfield midfielder out of favour at Manchester City and struggling to find a new home after spending an unhappy loan spell at West Ham. Whether the interest was serious is not yet known, but any transfer would only be viable before a return to the Premier League.

As it happened, the play-off final defeat to Southampton brought Leeds another year of Championship football and extinguished any faint hopes of a homecoming, and the Whites academy star joined Ipswich Town as a loan player instead, automatically qualifying for the Premier League. If the result had been different, speculation would have only intensified, but Phillips insists it would not have been so black and white for him.

“I was at that game [the play-off final] and I was devastated they didn’t get promoted,” Phillips told the East Anglian Daily Times. “Of course I wanted Leeds to get promoted. It’s a club that’s very dear to my heart. Even if Leeds had got promoted and Ipswich had maybe got into the play-offs, it would still have been very tight as to where I would have gone because I like the Ipswich story very much.”

In the end, no such decision was made and Phillips moved to Ipswich, setting off a considerable reunion at Portman Road. Shortly afterwards, former Leeds winger Jack Clarke joined from Sunderland and Leif Davis had already established himself in the first team under Kieran McKenna.

It was Davis who persuaded his former Leeds teammate to move from the champions Elect City to the Premier League side Ipswich. After leaving Elland Road for just £1 million in 2022, following a difficult loan spell at Bournemouth, the defender found a home with the Tractor Boys, who were in League One at the time.

“If he was maybe two or three years older, then he would have been a mainstay of the Leeds team,” the centre-forward added of his long-time teammate. “But football is football and sometimes you have to leave the places and friends you love to experience new things and improve your career.

“When I saw that Leif was playing regularly and doing well here, something sprouted inside me. I realised that I wanted to feel a bigger part of the team again. I wanted to be able to rely on him every week, to be fit, to be healthy, to play, to score, to defend.

“I played against some of the guys and they seemed like good people. I could tell what the team would be like if I came here. I just needed a team that would be together and a place where I would be happy to come every day. I wanted to play every week in a team of fighters who work really hard. I felt like Ipswich was the right fit for me, and I still feel that way.”