Clinchermen
JACK & PEP KEY TO KAL DEAL
IT MIGHT just be the most significant thing Jack Grealish has done since joining Manchester City.
Grealish, it turns out, was instrumental in persuading Kalvin Phillips to follow him to The Etihad in a £45million deal.
The duo have become close friends in recent times, to such an extent that Phillips is expected to join the same firm of football agents that looks after Grealish.
Just imagine being a fly on the wall when the England team-mates were discussing what
Phillips should do next at such a crucial point in his career.
“Come across to Manchester mate. You only have to start less than 25 league games because Pep Guardiola has got more superstars than he knows what to do with. And you can earn four times as much for the privilege.”
Marcus Bent described City’s move for Leeds legend Phillips as “bonkers”.
The former striker was referring to the fee the champions have paid for someone who has established himself as one of the best holding midfielders in the top flight.
The only problem for Phillips, however, is that he’s just joined a team which already has one of the best holding midfielders in Europe in Rodri.
So Bent might be right in one sense, because if things pan out how we imagine them to next season then Phillips might be left wondering if he was crazy to choose a bit-part role in football’s equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters.
Phillips had a number of options on the table when he sat down with his family last month to decide his immediate future.
Manchester United, Paris SaintGermain, West Ham, Aston Villa and even Real Madrid had all shown interest.
But Phillips, 26, snubbed all of them in favour of joining City for one reason – the chance to work under Guardiola. It’s a measure of how strong the Spanish boss’s allure still is that he can persuade someone of Phillips’ calibre to pass up the chance of guaranteed football elsewhere to be a squad player at City.
But it will be a huge risk for him because it means he will have more in common with his big mate Grealish than he realised.
Guardiola (left) continues to stockpile talent at an astonishing rate and will stop at nothing to keep having the depth of players he needs to maintain his dominance of the domestic game.
Last summer he signed Grealish from Villa in a £100m deal that made him the most expensive star in British football.
But the price tag didn’t mean a thing to Guardiola, who didn’t even need to call on Grealish on the final afternoon of the season when City threatened to blow the title at home to the star’s former club. Grealish started just 22 league games last season.
This is the world Phillips has decided to step into.
He will earn bigger wages, he will win trophies, he will develop his game and he might even get to line up alongside Erling Haaland.
And good luck to him, because Phillips is a top bloke.
But there’s a good chance he will also become frustrated, because the World Cup takes place in Qatar in November and Phillips needs to be performing to guarantee being part of Gareth Southgate’s plans.
And this is where Guardiola’s greatest gift will come to the fore – because no manager is as good as him when it comes to dealing with men who want what’s best for them ahead of the team.