Weight row, chaos comment, transfer snub - Why it all went wrong for Kalvin Phillips

It's not often that Manchester City and Pep Guardiola get it wrong. Yet two years on and it's fair to say that they made a mistake signing Kalvin Phillips.

Arriving as a European Championship finalist, an England Player of the Year and a sought-after £42m man, Phillips was hardly doomed to fail from the start. Leeds might have played a different style to City, however it was a Leeds side coached by Marcelo Bielsa - a manager Guardiola modelled his tactics on.

The list of setbacks in 24 months is a long one, though. Ill-timed injuries, a rush to make the England World Cup squad in 2022, Guardiola's public comments that Phillips returned from Qatar unfit. That particular episode upset Phillips and his family to the point that he went public with his unhappiness, prompting a genuine apology from Guardiola. The pair have not really recovered.

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Phillips turned down a move away last summer, insisting he wasn't going to give up on his City career after one season. He pointed to Joao Cancelo, Bernardo Silva and even Rodri as players who took a season to adapt to Guardiola's demands. More injuries stalled his progress, though, and then when his opportunity did come, he couldn't take it.

Phillips declared three games in the Autumn with Rodri suspended as the biggest week of his career, he'd been waiting for a chance to prove himself right. This was it.

He started one game, was a second half substitute in the next, and didn't feature in the final game against Arsenal. There was no way back and a loan to West Ham followed