Right, so simple. All we need is for Phil to magically get better than the internationals ahead of him by...not playing? Everyone knows youth development doesn't work that way. Sometimes you take a short term hit to develop a player and make him as good as the others. And thats even putting aside the fact that Phil has looked every bit the part of a serviceable midfielder for us whenever he has actually played; he isn't a charity case.
He isn’t a charity case, and I agree that a loan might be ideal for him to build on his potential because playing is the best way to develop. But he’s not getting on our team for the foreseeable for me. I don’t think he’ll play on Tuesday, but he might against Southampton or the later CL games once we’ve qualified.
I can’t help but feel like we’ve overrated him a bit as a fanbase because he’s a local lad through our hopes and dreams for him to become our best hope for a true local talent since Paul Lake.
Against Rotherham last season, a relegated Championship side, he wasn’t really involved in the game which we won 7-0. He just blended in with the relegation quality Championship players they had and only had 38 touches.
He scored against Spurs in the Prem late last season - and I was beeming with pride for him - but again, after a few good passes and touches in the first half, he wasn’t really involved in the game a great deal.
That might be because of a lack of rhythm and game time (and fitness) but also might be because he’s lacking at the moment as a player.
While Foden isn’t a charity case, neither are City and if you look at every player in the squad on their merits as a squad number, you can’t just put someone in because it’ll be good for him. The manager and squad have a job to win every competition we enter. And Pep has thought even our POTS season from last season and only been worth around 50% of the total minutes of our game time this season (two of those games were after the Tweet saga, but he’s still only played 494 of 990)