Kalvin Phillips has been through many ups and downs since joining Manchester City.
City paid £45m to sign Phillips from Leeds United back in the 2022 summer transfer window.
After making just 21 appearances for City, four of which he started, in his debut season at the Etihad Stadium, the midfielder was loaned out to West Ham United in the 2024 January transfer window.
Following a rather disappointing period with the Hammers in which he started just three Premier League matches, Phillips joined Ipswich Town on a season-long loan deal back in June.
Now though, the 28-year-old has shared some details on one incident that took place between him and Pep Guardiola that ended up having a negative impact on the player.
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Kalvin Phillips admits Pep Guardiola incident annoyed him at Man City
Back in December 2022, Guardiola told the media (via BBC Sport), that he had left Phillips out of City’s matchday squad for their Carabao Cup game against Liverpool because the midfielder was “overweight” following his involvement in the World Cup for England.
Having now been at Ipswich for a few weeks, Phillips has now opened up about these comments from Guardiola in a recent edition of My Mate’s A Footballer.
He said: “You probably heard about the time when Pep came out and said that I was overweight after the World Cup. I think that narrative on social media just kind of grew and grew to something that it actually wasn’t.
“Every club that I’d go to, I spoke to the manager and the nutritionist and stuff like that, they’d always speak about weight before they’d say anything else.
“It got to the point where it peed me off a little bit. I was getting quite frustrated with it, but then now I’ve come to Ipswich, the manager’s an unbelievable person as well as a manager.
“We spoke about all my past stuff that happened in my career and stuff like that.
“He just said ‘I’m big on body composition and I just want you to get to where you were when you left Leeds or when you were at Leeds. I think that’ll give us a good starting point for you to push on and hopefully get to back, back to where you were.’”
What has Guardiola said about Phillips since the ‘overweight’ comments?
A few weeks after Guardiola made his comments, Phillips said that while he didn’t disagree with the City manager’s assessment, it still knocked his confidence.
Guardiola then went on to apologise for his comments in a press conference (via The Guardian) but added that he had spoken to Phillips on the matter beforehand.
Now that the midfielder has once again highlighted how frustrated he was by the entire situation and how it ended up being the main concern for other clubs looking to sign him, this further showcases how much of an impact Guardiola’s comments had.
Since joining Ipswich, Phillips has started three Premier League games, playing at least an hour in each of them.
Therefore, everyone at City will undoubtedly be hoping that the Englishman can continue to play regularly and have a successful spell with the Tractors.
