I’m so sorry – Guardiola apologizes to Man City player on overweight comments
Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, has apologized to Kalvin Phillips for saying the midfielder is overweight.
Guardiola publicly made the comments after Phillips returned from the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
The former Bayern Munich boss was explaining why Phillips had been left out of his squad for a Carabao Cup fourth-round tie against Liverpool.
The England midfielder has said the remarks were “a big knock to my confidence” when asked earlier this month.
Ahead of Tuesday’s Premier League clash with Brentford, Guardiola said: “I’m sorry.
“I do apologise to him. I’m so sorry.”
Guardiola also revealed he spoke to the 28-year-old, who is currently att West Ham on loan last month, about the issue.
Manchester City EDS lost 2-1 to Man United in the Manchester derby and manager Brian Barry-Murphy spoke after the game.
Barry-Murphy spoke to the MEN.
Manchester City’s Elite Development Squad forfeited the bragging rights in Manchester on Monday.
Brian Barry-Murphy’s side made the trip to Leigh Sports Village to take on Manchester United and lost 2-1, despite delivering an encouraging second-half performance.
The likes of Micah Hamilton, Joel Ndala, Jacob Wright and Mahamadou Susoho started the game and it was a strong City side, but the youngsters were, unfortunately, unable to salvage a draw under the floodlights in the Premier League 2 after falling two goals behind.
Stephen Mfuni, who came on as a substitute at half-time, scored City’s goal and that was a memorable moment for the youngster, who only celebrated his 16th birthday last week.
Barry-Murphy is an engaging talker and he spoke to the Manchester Evening News after the game to reflect on the performance. “The players might not understand being bottom of the league because they’ve never experienced it before and I have in my career,” he said.
“They can feel as if it’s the same every week, but it’s not. There’s a big difference in how we played in previous games and how we progressed to play tonight, so I was exceptionally pleased with a lot of what I saw and it gave me more reason to enforce practice the final bit of how we score goals.
“Because the players have to do that [finish the chances] irrespective of how we’re doing and when it’s the determining factor of the game, it gives me even more chance to focus on that.”
City couldn’t produce an equaliser at Leigh Sports Village.
City looked like an improved side after half-time and a draw would have been a fair result based on chances created. “We we very aware of what we wanted to do,” Barry-Murphy said when asked what the message in the dressing room was to his players during the interval.
“Essentially, we have players in the wide areas who can create very good opportunities, so we wanted to give them the ball as quickly as possible.
“What you’re seeing with Joel Ndala is he’s a high-level wide player, but he’s not getting what he feels he deserves in terms of finishing. That can only improve with what he does in training.
“That’s the bit which excites us most in terms of what we can do to develop him and I thought we were really dangerous for large parts of the second half.”
Ndala is one of a handful of EDS youngsters who have trained with City’s first team and Barry-Murphy believes that experience shows his players what is required to succeed in the senior game.
“I think it helps them because it gives them an insight into what it takes to perform at that level every single week,” he said. “Those guys have the mentality and it has to be seen to be believed.
Barry-Murphy used Bobb as an example.
“The role models in the first team are clear and I would say more than anything else, it shows how much they obsess about training, it’s incredible to watch and our lads can’t fail to pick up on that and be hungry to try to mirror that in any way they can.
“I think you see a realisation in the players about how hard they have to work. I don’t think it’s automatic and we’ve seen a lot of really positive examples of it and some will think it happens naturally and it doesn’t.
“So it’s important and if you use Oscar Bobb as a reference, he trained with the first team a lot, came back to us, and is probably the most determined trainer you will see. He’s now shown the fruits of that work and he’s probably an outstanding role model in terms of what can be achieved in a short period of time in our team.”
City have won three successive PL2 titles, but they are struggling in the league this season for various reasons, something which has posed different challenges to players and staff.
“What we did as a coaching staff was minimal because the players were of such a high level,” Barry-Murphy said about their recent success. “You had Cole Palmer, James McAtee, Oscar Bobb – those kinds of players can win games on their own.
“I feel what we’re achieving is of much greater benefit to the club because we’re having to do real work with the players and understanding what it is to develop resilience and understanding they are playing even more difficult games than they’ve ever experienced.
“And really, our defenders are doing more defending than they ever have done based on how young they are, so I’m really confident we’re going to develop some outstanding defenders off the back of that and the rest of the season, we’ll look at players individually and collectively be as strong as we can each game.”
City EDS are next in action on March 2 against Nottingham Forest at the Academy Stadium.
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