“Guardiola destroyed my confidence when he told me I was overweight”

Calvin Phillips (26) is uncomfortable with City of Manchester and in January he was loaned to West Ham United, where he hopes to find the confidence and prominence he has lacked in recent seasons at the Etihad Stadium under the command of a Pep Guardiola whose methods he questioned in a juicy interview where he talked about a little of everything.

“I wouldn’t be at the Euros this summer if I didn’t leave in January. I spoke to England manager Gareth Southgate about some teams a month before the January window and he influenced me to stay in the Premier League in instead of going abroad. I thought West Ham was the right place,” said the footballer. “I’m looking for consistency, otherwise there’s a chance someone else will play in my place and that’s crushing.”

Phillips, who signed for City in July 2022 from Leeds, admitted there are “bad days where I don’t feel any kind of emotion and that’s stressful.” Guardiola’s cynicism after his return from Qatar 2022 was his lowest point. “After the World Cup I experienced the hardest thing, when Pep came out and said he was overweight. He was right, but there are different ways of doing it.”

“Pep was very frustrated because I was 1.5kg over my target weight. It was a big blow to my confidence and what I felt at City. My family was not happy either, especially my mother.” Lindsay Crosby couldn’t handle seeing her son on the docks too often. “He was frustrated, he didn’t come to watch much because he didn’t like watching football without me playing.”