Exits for Kalvin Phillips and Raphinha feel like a full stop on the Leeds United era which ended their Premier League exile, brought Marcelo Bielsa to West Yorkshire and awakened a city. This transfer window has seen the beginning of that transition into whatever the Whites are about to become next.
With Bielsa went the first layers of the sanding-down the club is getting. A great many of the players who won that unforgettable promotion remain in the building, but Phillips, the homegrown gem polished into an England international, and Raphinha, the Brazilian maestro worthy of the Champions League, came to define the Bielsa era.
Their exits will also directly provide the money which then precipitates that metamorphosis into the second phase of this grand Premier League plan. This is the model Andrea Radrizzani wanted, in action.
