Phillips was a Guardiola signing, recommended by Bielsa. Didn't work out for him but remember at the time, he was playing next to Rice in an England two that looked great. It was worth a punt, especially as we had bid on Rice and Rodri is a vaguely similar player so maybe there could be chemistry there. It's only bad in hindsight, like most things.
I always think there's 2 types of players that we bring in at City. Players who are designed to play 70% of games and players that are designed to play 30% of games. I'd argue Nunes, Doku and Savinho were in the 30% range but due to circumstances such as Bobb, Palmer, Foden going centrally, etc, have graduated early into the 70% range without this being deserved on performances which is why they're catching flak.
City cheered SWP every time he came back after leaving for Chelsea.