Kalvin Phillips accuses Pep Guardiola of body shaming

Former Leeds United player, Kalvin Phillips has called out the manager of Manchester City, Pep Guardiola for the way things went for him at the club.

Phillips joined the Cityzens during the 2022 summer transfer window but failed to break into Guardiola's first team. He was part of the Manchester City team that won a treble last season but he featured just 21 times and many of these appearances coming off the bench.

The English international was speaking in an interview with the Mirror where he said that Guardiola was right to highlight him being overweight but felt he could have gone about it a different way.

When Pep came out and said I was overweight, he was right to do so but there are different ways to go about it. 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."

He also spoke about the miscommunication between himself and Guardiola about the date he was supposed to return to the team after the World Cup.

"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 had 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."

Phillips joined West Ham on loan during the 2024 January transfer window as he looks to get regular game time so can get a look in by Gareth Southgate ahead of Euro 2024.