Six starts, five trophies: The Kalvin Phillips paradox provides a valuable lesson
The England midfielder has a fresh chance with West Ham after repeated snubs at Man City under Pep Guardiola in a spell that was both wildly successful and a failure
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Your support makes all the difference.There was a moment a few weeks ago when Pep Guardiola expressed his fondness for Kalvin Phillips. Sadly for the staple of Manchester City benches, it was as a person rather than a footballer. “He is a lovely guy,” said Guardiola. He meant it, too: Phillips is a popular figure at the Etihad Stadium. And yet, as Guardiola had said in the same answer: “I visualise some things and visualise the team and things and I struggle to see him.”
Not that Phillips was seen much in his team, which makes his loan move to West Ham all the more necessary. He started two games this season, one in a Carabao Cup defeat, the other a Champions League dead rubber. He began two in the Premier League over his 18 months at City, both after the title was won, the latter on the final day when the first-choice midfield and attack were all rested for the FA Cup and Champions League finals.
In a paradox, Phillips’ City career was both so successful and so unsuccessful that it has only brought one more start than trophies: six to five. An otherwise all-conquering City side lost three of those six games, too. On the bigger stages, he became one of the game’s most decorated spectators.
He was rarely trusted when anything was at stake: his last four substitute appearances began when City led 3-1, 5-1, 3-0 and 3-0 respectively. Such outings as he was granted tended to be brief cameos. Guardiola seemed scarred by April’s match against a Leicester side who would be relegated a month later. Phillips was sent on with 38 minutes to go and City 3-0 up. Leicester then threatened to take a point and he, with endearing if perhaps unwise honesty, admitted he had “a stinker”.
And yet honesty felt a rare common denominator in a mismatch of manager and player. Guardiola is a long-time admirer of Marcelo Bielsa, who at Leeds transformed Phillips from a box-to-box presence in the Championship to a defensive midfielder who played in the final of Euro 2020. "Marcelo gave Kalvin the best of Kalvin in his career,” he reflected in September. “I'd love to have done with Kalvin what Marcelo has done to him.”
He seemed to conclude quickly that he couldn’t. The ‘Yorkshire Pirlo’, it transpired, was not the Yorkshire Rodri, nor the understudy Guardiola wanted. Rodri’s importance grew, partly from his excellence, but partly because the other specialist defensive midfielder in the squad was marginalised. Guardiola preferred a host of others – Rico Lewis, John Stones, Bernardo Silva, Mateo Kovacic, Matheus Nunes – as either the Spaniard’s deputy or his sidekick this season.
If there was a false start to his City career, first with a shoulder injury and then with Guardiola’s public declaration that Phillips arrived back from the World Cup overweight, there should have been a swifter conclusion. Last summer, he seemed the man who could not take a hint. He noted that many another signing had taken time to adjust to Guardiola’s unique tactical demands; the second season has proved better for several, but with the fundamental difference that players such as Jack Grealish, Riyad Mahrez, Silva and Rodri were not as starved of minutes and starts in their debut year. They had more reason for encouragement. By staying, Phillips wasted half a season.
That Phillips still had no shortage of suitors, both last summer and in January, is an illustration of his appeal elsewhere. He may not suit City’s perpetual possession game, and may suffer by comparison with Sergio Busquets, Philipp Lahm and Xabi Alonso, Guardiola’s previous pivots, but there has been a queue for his services as a defensive midfielder. A combination of his combativity and long passing is rare.
West Ham may have been the most persistent of his pursuers, if not the most obvious destination after the success of the summer signings James Ward-Prowse and Edson Alvarez. They may not have needed still more ballast. Yet David Moyes has often proved an astute judge of central midfielders and found ways of incorporating them successfully into his teams.
It is a move that seems likely to meet with Gareth Southgate’s approval. There has been an odd synchronicity to how two of his midfield issues are easing. In very different ways, Jordan Henderson and Phillips each took a poor decision in the summer, which looks to be resolved now, offering first-team football and a chance to enter Euro 2024 in form and the appropriate shape.
He has traded a watching brief for the chance to resume a career. And if the reality that he will not flourish at Guardiola’s City may have been a painful one, if there is still a need to find a long-term home, there should be a welcome change. After an 18-month hiatus, Kalvin Phillips could be playing plenty of football again.
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