47 | Phil Foden - 2024/25

[Craig]

He's had a slow-ish start this season but he still has a healthy goal contribution rate despite not featuring much. Two goals and two assists from six starts is good. He's had to deal with some stuff that's affected him off the field but he's spoken about that publicly now and is getting back to full fitness and sharpness.

It took him until October 29th to get his third goal of the season in the 23/24 campaign (vs United at Old Trafford). If he scores this weekend against Bournemouth he'll be scoring basically at the same rate as this time 12 months ago. The bulk of his 27 goals came from November and December onwards last year.

It's easy for us to be revisionist and say Phil was on it from the word go last season but he wasn't. Like a lot of our lads, it was only after that run of draws vs Spurs, Liverpool, and Chelsea, then the 1-0 defeat at Villa, that things started looking like they were coming together. The same should happen again in a few weeks.

I think there's just added focus on him because De Bruyne, Grealish, and Doku have all been injured as well, which means we're putting more and more pressure and attention on Foden to deliver at a time when he's usually just getting up to speed. It bears repeating that we just need to amble on til January and get going then.

Yeah, you’re right about him not really getting flying until about this time last season. He had that Newcastle performance early on but then didn’t play in the middle much more for a while. His problem could be if he doesn’t get going soon and as we all hope KDB gets back he struggles to get back into the centre. From the left these days since that real pace he had 3 years ago disappeared he’s not that effective. The right won’t be easy for him to nail down with Savinho improving and Bernie still often Pep’s go too in tough games. So if he doesn’t start flying soon it could end up a very stop start and frustrating season for him. After finally showing the consistency to go with his undoubted brilliance last season.

 

[Saddleworth2]

He's had to deal with some stuff that's affected him off the field but he's spoken about that publicly now and is getting back to full fitness and sharpness.

What did he say? I must have missed it.