Kalvin Phillips

Txiki Txiki Bang Bang said:
Best Pep can use him for right now is some kind of NDJ enforcer, That role doesn't require too much football IQ, just chop the opponent far away from the box, break down their play, a few shirt pulls here and there, some beefy crunchy tackles to remind them that we are not a Spanish team despite having a Spanish Catalan manager.

If we had the NDJ/Gattuso "mad man" type of player in the game against Brighton, they would have had second thoughts about kicking us all over the pitch like they did, you kick Rodri, we take out Mitoma and Minteh, see how you like it.
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Gerry Gow
 
paulchapo said:
No he was decent for England. As you say the bar there isn't high but he showed enough that he could play an holding role for us to give Rodri a rest here and there.
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Do you think he needed more ganes with us as he only got a couple of starts . ?
 
paulchapo said:
Injuries didn't help him but no he was pretty awful the few times he did play. Subsequent loan spells proved his form had plummeted for whatever reasons.
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I was pretty happy when he signed - seemed to tick a lot of boxes and he had done it for England in the euros and looked a proper player. But whilst he didn’t get a huge number of chances you do have to earn them plus when he got on he never seemed desperate to impact games. Number of times he came on in the CL late on and just wandered about. No effort to try and make an impact - even winning a 60/40, snapping into tackles and pressing - if that happens then often confidence grows and things pick up. 5 minutes at the end becomes 10 the week after giving you a chance to get a foothold. Bit like Grealish - when he came to a club with expectations to play well ever 3/4 days he didn’t fancy it or wasn’t able to do so. Now it’s 3 years since he played, massive money and nobody will fancy him. Imagine we are trying to agree a deal to part ways.
 
Txiki Txiki Bang Bang said:
Best Pep can use him for right now is some kind of NDJ enforcer, That role doesn't require too much football IQ, just chop the opponent far away from the box, break down their play, a few shirt pulls here and there, some beefy crunchy tackles to remind them that we are not a Spanish team despite having a Spanish Catalan manager.

If we had the NDJ/Gattuso "mad man" type of player in the game against Brighton, they would have had second thoughts about kicking us all over the pitch like they did, you kick Rodri, we take out Mitoma and Minteh, see how you like it.
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Would be nice to have someone to come on and just hack fuckers, doesn’t matter if he gets a red, wait till he’s back and do it again
 
Tier2Blue said:
I was pretty happy when he signed - seemed to tick a lot of boxes and he had done it for England in the euros and looked a proper player. But whilst he didn’t get a huge number of chances you do have to earn them plus when he got on he never seemed desperate to impact games. Number of times he came on in the CL late on and just wandered about. No effort to try and make an impact - even winning a 60/40, snapping into tackles and pressing - if that happens then often confidence grows and things pick up. 5 minutes at the end becomes 10 the week after giving you a chance to get a foothold. Bit like Grealish - when he came to a club with expectations to play well ever 3/4 days he didn’t fancy it or wasn’t able to do so. Now it’s 3 years since he played, massive money and nobody will fancy him. Imagine we are trying to agree a deal to part ways.
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He’s talked about how Pep is so intelligent and that he struggled to figure it out, so I imagine much like Nunes, Pep doesn’t think he’s intelligent enough to play in the middle for him. He does seem thick as fuck like.
 
Arguably the worst pound-for-pound signing in our history. I thought Leeds getting promoted was the perfect ticket to get rid but even they didn't bite - as no doubt we/him and his agents put it to them.
 
skillman said:
Arguably the worst pound-for-pound signing in our history. I thought Leeds getting promoted was the perfect ticket to get rid but even they didn't bite - as no doubt we/him and his agents put it to them.
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Doesn't help he's out injured till Christmas tbf. Another who'll leave for free in a few years.
 
CΛL said:
He’s a lower league player on champions league wages, stuck with him till his contracts out, loan moves will become harder to sell due to his wages vs output
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Nobody's fault but our own. Dreadful scouting by City and the daft fee determined the daft wages. His agent must have been pissing himself laughing when the contract was signed.

City should just offer him 75% of his remaining contract to pay him off. He'd probably take it straight off and sign for a Championship club ten minutes after.
 
Lavinda Past said:
Nobody's fault but our own. Dreadful scouting by City and the daft fee determined the daft wages. His agent must have been pissing himself laughing when the contract was signed.

City should just offer him 75% of his remaining contract to pay him off. He'd probably take it straight off and sign for a Championship club ten minutes after.
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He was a starting midfielder for an England team that did quite well. I think maybe he just felt like an imposter when he saw the quality of City's players and then fell into a comfort zone because of the length of his contract. Yes our scouting was poor but he really failed to deliver on his side of the deal.
 
jamesha said:
He was a starting midfielder for an England team that did quite well. I think maybe he just felt like an imposter when he saw the quality of City's players and then fell into a comfort zone because of the length of his contract. Yes our scouting was poor but he really failed to deliver on his side of the deal.
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Being an England starter is no indication of quality. There's a dearth of 'elite' standard English footballers. Even Leeds fans thought he wasn't PL quality. We genuinely mugged ourselves when we signed him.
 
Lavinda Past said:
Being an England starter is no indication of quality. There's a dearth of 'elite' standard English footballers. Even Leeds fans thought he wasn't PL quality. We genuinely mugged ourselves when we signed him.
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I think Pep was **** stuck by Bielsa and he chanced his arm to give us Kalvin.
 
Tier2Blue said:
I was pretty happy when he signed - seemed to tick a lot of boxes and he had done it for England in the euros and looked a proper player. But whilst he didn’t get a huge number of chances you do have to earn them plus when he got on he never seemed desperate to impact games. Number of times he came on in the CL late on and just wandered about. No effort to try and make an impact - even winning a 60/40, snapping into tackles and pressing - if that happens then often confidence grows and things pick up. 5 minutes at the end becomes 10 the week after giving you a chance to get a foothold. Bit like Grealish - when he came to a club with expectations to play well ever 3/4 days he didn’t fancy it or wasn’t able to do so. Now it’s 3 years since he played, massive money and nobody will fancy him. Imagine we are trying to agree a deal to part ways.
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Honestly, his biggest problem was that he just couldn't keep hold of the ball, which is an absolute basic requirement for us. He was incapable of shielding the ball from pressing attackers, or finding space to make himself available, so eventually teammates stopped passing to him. The DM is supposed to provide an outball and he never could, yet also didn't have the reading of the game to spot danger and cover the defence. If you watched England, he was far more of an all-action box-to-box midfielder, but for us, he never had anything approaching the same level of energy, and didn't have the technique, vision or passing ability to justify that sort of role ahead of the likes of Gundogan, Bernardo or KDB. He basically should have been what Kovacic is now.

And all of that would be forgivable if we'd paid the fee that was originally mooted of around 25 million, but the news comes out that we're signing him, and it's suddenly gone up to 45. And then to add insult to injury (no pun intended), he's got an injury record that would make Darren Anderton blush.
 
I feel for him. He didn't really get a fair chance, and DM is a role that it is hard to set the world alight - not like playing as a winger, or banging in a few goals as a striker. Couple that with the fact he was competing with Rodri for the DM role, he never stood a chance.
 
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MarcIsTired1986 said:
I feel for him. He didn't really get a fair chance, and DM is a role that it is hard to set the world alight - not like playing as a winger, or banging in a few goals as a striker. Couple that with the fact he was competing with Rodri for the DM role, he never stood a chance.
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Doubt he was ever competing with Rodri tbh. He was brought in to either replace him when required or sit alongside him when needed. Either way he looked like a rabbit in the headlights & lacked the football intelligence/awareness that Pep-ball requires.
 
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