Sam Allardyce has claimed that Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola could use Kalvin Phillips to help fill in for Kevin De Bruyne while he’s out injured.
After being forced off the pitch in the 23rd minute of City’s 3-0 win over Burnley last week, De Bruyne will now be out of action for the next four months with a hamstring issue he’s struggled with previously.
This has since led to one pundit and former Premier League manager sharing his thoughts on the matter and even pinpointed one player in Guardiola’s squad that could do a job while the Belgian is out.
Allardyce says Guardiola could use Phillips in De Bruyne’s absence
Speaking on a recent edition of the No Tippy Tippy Football podcast, Allardyce had this to say about Phillips when discussing who could fill in for De Bruyne in City’s side.
He said: “You’d argue that he has a replacement but not the same type, obviously, big money from Leeds but not had a chance to actually prove himself, but that would mean playing a different way because Kevin is obviously more attacking-minded than Kalvin.”
The 27-year-old only started four of the 21 games he featured in last season but ended up ending his debut season at the Etihad Stadium by winning the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League.
Having now seen the club win the Super Cup by beating Sevilla in midweek, the Englishman has now lifted the same amount of trophies as games he’s started since his arrival.
With Phillips being a defensive-midfielder, this shows why Allardyce said that having him in the team instead of De Bruyne would make City need to play differently than they normally would.
Moving forward, with the 32-year-old now set to miss a significant chunk of the campaign, it’ll be interesting to see if this could lead to Phillips getting a chance to play regularly.
However, with Phil Foden featuring in midfield against Sevilla, this could be a sign that Guardiola will be using him to fill in for De Bruyne rather than Phillips.
