Guardiola ‘hoping’ Man City flop leaves after greenlighting Fulham move and inviting more offers
Manchester City are open to selling Kalvin Phillips in January if he wants to leave, according to a report that has claimed Fulham made contact for him recently.
Phillips spent most of his first season at Man City on the sidelines after joining them from Leeds United last summer. However, he has stuck around for a second attempt at proving himself to Pep Guardiola – even if he could have had opportunities to leave in the summer.
According to Football Transfers, Fulham made contact for Phillips late in the summer transfer window, when they thought they might be losing Joao Palhinha to Bayern Munich.
However, their attempt to sign him on deadline day fell through, equally because of Palhinha’s exit collapsing and Phillips’ desire to compete for his place at the Etihad Stadium.
Despite this, the report claims Guardiola gave the green light for Phillips to join Fulham and is actually still ‘hoping’ he moves on soon so he can secure someone else as cover in midfield.
Man City strengthened their engine room in the summer with the signings of Mateo Kovacic from Chelsea and Matheus Nunes from Wolves, compensating for the release of Ilkay Gundogan to Barcelona and an injury to Kevin De Bruyne.
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Yet they may be on the lookout for another holding player to compete with Rodri, after loaning out January signing Maximo Perrone to Las Palmas over the summer.
Whether Fulham will revive their attempts to sign Phillips in the winter transfer window remains to be seen. There is already an expectation, as TEAMtalk has revealed, that Bayern could come back in for Palhinha.
Once again, though, any subsequent interest in Phillips will depend on his desire to move or not. Man City still have him under contract until 2028.
Some rare chances are about to fall Phillips’ way in the meantime while Rodri serves a three-match ban. When Guardiola’s side visit Newcastle for a Carabao Cup match on Wednesday, the 27-year-old could even be among the starters.
Guardiola calls Phillips a ‘lovely person’ and names his biggest quality
At his press conference before the game on Tuesday, Guardiola touched upon the Phillips situation by explaining: “He decided to stay, the club spoke with him and for the fact that maybe he had not much minutes, and he wanted to stay.
“He will be a father soon, so he wanted to stay here. It’s okay, it’s perfect. He’s a lovely person.”
He also commented: “Players are specific. We brought Kalvin here for his quality. There are no twins in football, every player has their own personality and qualities.
“Marcelo [Bielsa] gave Kalvin the best Kalvin in his career, I’d love to have done with Kalvin what Marcelo has done to him.
“It is what it is. We have a specific way to play and sometimes they struggle with a few things but in the previous game he was perfect.
“His biggest quality is he’s always open minded and wants to learn, this is what we will try to do.”
When he takes to the pitch against Newcastle, Phillips will be making just his 25th appearance in Man City colours.
