Fate has handed Phillips a brief window of opportunity to prove to Pep Guardiola that he's up to snuff - will he take it?
No wonder Phillips is down — though not in the sense that he openly complains or sulks about it, which is probably Guardiola’s biggest no-no.
“I’m so pleased for him because he’s an incredible guy — never one bad face when he didn’t play the minutes,” Guardiola said at the weekend after bringing Phillips on to help 10-man City see out that 2-0 win over Forest., and with me, with us, he doesn’t play much, but he played really good and helped us a lot.”
Guardiola then outlined the skills that Phillips contributed towards the win — City used five defenders and played on the break after Rodri’s dismissal — and in doing so shed some light on why the Yorkshireman does not fit into more game plans. “I know sometimes he struggles for some things that we need — in small spaces to be quicker, and other players have another type of quality,” the City manager said. “But in the game today, what we needed — to be there to win the second balls, to keep the balls, to make actions to the byline, the personality in long balls, even in the corners, because we knew it with a lot of crosses in the way they play — he gave us a lot.
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