Manchester City and Pep Guardiola had big plans for Kalvin Phillips. They would not have paid 49,000,000 euros to Leeds a year and a half ago if they did not. But it didn’t go as everyone had hoped and the English midfielder left for a ‘temporary job’ at West Ham today.Phillips came a year and a half ago to the blue part of Manchester as a standard England national team player and one of the favorites of coach Gareth Southgate. The fact that he was only the third player in this century who made his debut for the national team and played as a second-division player without playing a minute in the Premier League, best shows how important Phillips was to the England coach. That’s when he got the nickname ‘Yorkshire Pirlo’. He then entered the elite ranks of English football with Leeds, played two good Premier League seasons, was irreplaceable under Southgate and started the countdown for a transfer to a bigger club.##NAJAVA_MECA_7828772##That summer, Manchester United and Liverpool wanted him, but City were the most persistent and paid him almost 50,000,000 euros. He came to replace the club legend Fernandinho, but soon got injured and had to undergo shoulder surgery to be ready for the World Cup. The national team was always ahead of the club, which Guardiola didn’t really like because after Qatar he directed ‘poisonous arrows’ at the account of the national team that Phillips returned from Qatar with ‘extra kilos around his belt’.In his debut season for Cityzens, he played about twenty matches, but only 12 in the Premier League, mostly as a reserve. The summer arrivals of Mateo Kovačić and Mateus Núñez were a clear signal that Guardiola no longer sees him as a serious option, but despite the offers, he wanted to stay and fight for a place in the team. He also started this season as a reserve, playing in only four matches in the championship and getting a chance in less important matches. It became clear to him that he was redundant…He scored his debut goal in the Manchester City jersey against Red Star in the Champions League, which was also his last match in Guardiola’s team. Even then, it was clear that a winter transfer awaits him if he wants to keep his place with Southgate in the national team for the upcoming EURO 2024.Delighted to sign for @WestHam for the remainder of the season! Can’t wait to get started! ❤️⚒️ #COYI pic.twitter.com/lEhGGWjzIy— Kalvin Phillips (@Kalvinphillips) January 26, 2024 Juventus, Bayern, PSG were mentioned, but in the end West Ham came out ‘victorious’. The Hammers signed the English midfielder on loan, but without the right to purchase the contract, which means that Guardiola has not definitively given up on him. West Ham will pay a six-month loan and take on the player’s entire salary until the end of the season. Phillips comes to fill the hole in the “number six” position created by Declan Rice’s departure this year, with whom he plays in tandem in the national team, and hopes that it will be the same at the European Championship in Germany, where the English open the competition with a match against Serbia.Gareth Southgate can be calm because Phillips is the only important player on the national team who struggled with playing minutes on the club level.
