Marcelo Bielsa keen to avoid rushing his injured Leeds United stars back

Phillips looked back to his best in Saturday’s Premier League win at Everton, only his second game since a month out with a shoulder problem.

Rodrigo has been limited to two brief substitute appearances since contracting Coronavirus last month and October signing Diego Llorente is yet to make his Leeds debut after a succession of minor muscle injuries. Pablo Hernandez and Jamie Shackleton have also suffered them and they have been a regular occurrence nationwide in a campaign squeezed into a smaller-than-usual timeframe after a short pre-season caused by the knock-on from last season’s Covid-19 lay-off.

Bielsa plans to bring Hernandez, Shackleton and particularly Llorente back gradually, but admits circumstances could force his hand.

“Llorente is healthy, he is in condition to play and the ideal thing would be for him to play with the Under-23s before he plays with the first team because it has been a while since he has played, but we will see,” said Bielsa, whose side travel to Chelsea in Saturday’s late kick-off. “We hope we don’t have a situation where we have to accelerate his progress into the team.

“When a player returns there are ways to help his recovery with an activity similar to Premier League football knowing that you can manage his game-time and that the (performance) levels are a little bit lower. This is the ideal process especially when players have repeat muscular injuries which is the case with Pablo, Shackleton and Llorente.

“(But) if the team requires him you may have to call on a player who is healthy but maybe doesn’t have the ideal sporting level (of fitness). If you can do it in a more progressive manner that is better because the player’s performance will progressively improve. You can verify whether he is completely healed. Sometimes you can do it this way and sometimes you can’t.”

Leeds have used Liam Cooper, Robin Koch, Luke Ayling and Pascal Struijk at centre-back this season, allowing them to do without Llorente. Phillips can also play there but his absence from midfield was felt when he was injured.

Bielsa was not prepared to pass judgement on whether the break helped Phillips, whose schedule was added to by first international caps in September and October, and sees areas where the Leeds-born player can improve further.

“What distinguishes Kalvin from the rest is the capacity to play the ball,” he explained. “To obtain the ball to distribute it there’s two paths – one is to recover the ball, and after recovering it, managing the ball.

“The second path is to move into positions where he can receive the ball and distribute it.

“The more he recovers the ball and the more he moves to become free, the more he will be able to shine.”

With west London in England’s post-lockdown Tier 2, Leeds will be playing in front of a crowd for the first time since March at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.

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