Kalvin Phillips opens up on the lasting effects of Pep Guardiola’s ‘overweight’ comment

Kalvin Phillips admits he was left frustrated by Pep Guardiola’s comments about his weight at Manchester City.

Guardiola accused Phillips of returning to City from the 2022 World Cup in Qatar overweight, in public comments for which the manager later apologised. But Phillips says the stinging criticism has stayed with him ever since.

“I think that narrative on social media just kind of grew and grew,” the City midfielder, who is on loan at Ipswich Town this season, told the My Mate’s a Footballer podcast, hosted by his former Leeds United teammate Patrick Bamford.

“Every club that I’d go to, I spoke to, like the manager and the nutritionist and stuff like that, they’d always speak about weight before they’d say anything else. And it got to the point where it peed me off a little bit. I was getting quite frustrated with it.”

However, Phillips lavished praise on the City manager, saying his tactical precision left him “gobsmacked”.

“The first game we played, West Ham away, in my first season there, he literally told the team in a meeting probably two days before how the game was going to play out,” Phillips said.

“He said West Ham are going to start well, they’re going to put us under pressure and then we’re going to have a little bit of time, we’re going to get opportunities to get the ball to Kevin [De Bruyne], and then if Kevin plays it behind for Erling [Haaland] then we’re more than likely going to score [how City scored their second goal].

“He just mentioned different ways that we could attack and then how they’re going to press us and then you’d seen it happen in real life. And I was just sat there like, this is ridiculous. I couldn’t believe it. At one point I was gobsmacked how it just worked out and I could see exactly what he was saying happening on the pitch.”

Phillips said he is enjoying his new life at Ipswich, having played in all three of their opening Premier League games.

“The main reason I came to Ipswich was just just to get back playing football week in week out, and make sure that I'm fit again, and I'm not getting many injuries.

“Just back to enjoying my football because obviously I loved it at City, they’re the best team in the world, they’ve got amazing players and amazing people there [but] it’s kind of draining when you know you’re not going to play on the weekend and you’ve still got to go in and train as well as you can and hopefully make yourself better and better everyday. With nothing to look forward to on the weekend it’s hard.

“It just got to a point where I knew that I probably weren't going to play much because of the players that play in front of me, which you know, I can't really argue about that.”