While Guardiola wins with Man City, his ex-player blames him for low confidence

Pep Guardiola is one of the greatest football managers of all time and has coached some of the best teams football has ever seen. Guardiola was involved in the 2009-2011 FC Barcelona team and has reached new heights with his current Manchester City team. Although he is very successful, he also caused some issues with a couple of his former players.

Related News: Guardiola's disappointment that would take him out of City to sign with Barca

Some of the few players who openly said they had problems with Pep Guardiola are Yaya Toure, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Samuel Eto'o. On this occasion, this former player of his doesn't seem to have an issue with Guardiola personally but did not appreciate his recent comments. That player is Kalvin Phillips, who left Manchester City this January to join West Ham United on loan. Phillips was called overweight by Guardiola when the press asked of his participation in games for Man City. Phillips finally speaks about the situation.

In an interview with Ryan Taylor from the Mirror, Phillips said, "When Pep came out and said I was overweight, he was right to do so… but there are different ways to go about it. I did not disagree, but obviously, it took a big knock on my confidence. My family were not happy about it, either. Especially my mum. People can say overweight like it’s 10kg. I was probably 1.5kg over my weight target…”.

Related News: Manchester City finds Pep Guardiola's successor, a current Citizens player

Kalvin Phillips speaks on Pep Guardiola's frustration towards him after the 2022 World Cup

Kalvin Phillips continued talking about Guardiola and mentioned the Spanish coach's frustration with him. Phillips says, "Pep was frustrated that I didn't come back into training early after the World Cup, of course — but it was a miscommunication between the people that worked at City and myself. I got told to be back on a certain date, and I was always going to go back earlier than that date anyway because I hadn't played that much for England during the tournament. I'd just recovered from my shoulder injury, so Pep wanted me to come in the day after we finished the tournament so I could be involved in the friendlies. I never got that information because if he asked me to have been there… I would have been there.”