Kalvin Phillips gives clear verdict on Pep Guardiola’s ‘overweight’ comments during Man City nightmare

To temporarily put an end to a trying time at the champions, Kalvin Phillips left Manchester City and moved to West Ham United in an attempt to revive his career.

Holding midfielder Phillips joined Pep Guardiola’s team in the summer of 2022 after leaving his childhood club, Leeds United, for an initial £42 million transfer fee.

Naturally, Phillips was a member of the team that won the FA Cup, the Premier League, and the Champions League to complete the trifecta last season.

Despite the team’s success as a whole, Phillips found it difficult to play a regular role for City last season, making just 21 appearances—many of which came off the bench.

This season, Phillips made ten appearances for City and scored his first goal for the team. However, in January, he decided to go on loan to West Ham in an effort to get more regular playing time and improve his chances of making the England squad for the European Championships this summer.

In sharp remarks following the 2022 winter World Cup in Qatar, Guardiola was candid about Phillips’s level of fitness and acknowledged that he had returned to City “overweight.”

The midfielder, who has already made two appearances for West Ham and may make another appearance this afternoon against Arsenal, has given some thought to Guardiola’s remarks.

Although Phillips thinks Guardiola was correct to draw attention to his weight, he thought the City manager should have approached the matter in a more tactful manner, which eventually affected the midfielder’s confidence

The 28-year-old acknowledges that his mother in particular was upset by the City manager’s remarks since he believed there had been a misunderstanding over the matter.

In an interview with the Mirror, he stated: “It was appropriate for Pep to come out and admit that I was overweight, but there are other approaches to take.

“I did not disagree with him but obviously it took a big knock on my confidence and how I felt at City I would probably say that.

“And my family were not happy about it, either. Especially my mum.

“People can say overweight – overweight for some people is like 10kg. I was probably 1.5kg over my weight target.

“I think obviously Pep was frustrated that I didn’t come back into training early but it was just miscommunication between the people that worked at City and myself.

“I got told to be back on a certain date and I was always going to go back earlier than that date anyway because I hadn’t played that much for England during the tournament.

“I’d just recovered from my shoulder injury so Pep wanted me to come in the day after we finished the tournament so I could be involved in the friendlies. I never got that information because if he asked me to have been there, I would have been there.”