Manchester City journalist Sam Lee has said that Pep Guardiola had already planned to play Phil Foden in midfield this season.
The Englishman played in City’s previous two matches against Sevilla in the Super Cup and Newcastle United in the Premier League after playing the majority of his games last season in wide positions.
With the 23-year-old now seemingly holding down a midfield place in Pep Guardiola’s side, one journalist has shed some light into how this has come about.
Lee says Guardiola had already planned to use Foden in midfield
In a recent edition of The Athletic Football Podcast, Lee said this about Foden and his move into midfield.
He said: “So Phil Foden going into a more central-midfield role is long overdue really considering he came through the Manchester City academy in that position, and everybody always talked about him as the next David Silva.
“It’s happened now for two reasons really, it was planned at the end of last season that he would actually move into a more central-midfield role rather than on the wing, but also [Kevin] De Bruyne’s injury.”
With De Bruyne now out of action for the next few months while he recovers from a hamstring injury that required him to have surgery, it’s no surprise that this has potentially fast-tracked Foden into taking up a midfield role for City.
The England international showed in the win over Newcastle just how effective he can be in midfield as he not only provided the assist for Julian Alvarez’s winning goal, he made seven key passes throughout the game, more than any other player on the night.
In fact, he ultimately earned himself an overall match rating of 8.9/10 from SofaScore for his display against Eddie Howe’s side, making him the highest-rated player that featured in the game.
This is a very positive sign that Foden does have what it takes to be a top performer for his side in that position and why Guardiola was right to start planning to use him there.
Moving forward, if the City star can deliver another impressive performance this weekend against Sheffield United and for the rest of the season, he’ll undoubtedly be seen as one of the club’s success stories for this season.
