What’s going on with Phil Foden? JACK GAUGHAN reveals the weight loss and secretive physical issue holding him back – and why his Manchester City team-mates are worried about him
It was 48 hours after Phil Foden had delivered history for Manchester City that he sat inside the opulent Mottram Hall, content and absolutely sure of himself in a way that had not been quite so apparent before.
With good reason too. Pep Guardiola had talked glowingly about the academy graduate – ‘Phil took the team on his shoulders’ – after a season in which he blew the Premier League away, culminating in a brace on the final day against West Ham, the first of which a trademark arrow that chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak had predicted he’d score in training a day earlier.
This was one of the finest individual campaigns ever seen and Foden felt he had truly arrived on the world stage, discussing in that Cheshire hotel how England could attack last summer’s European Championship and how he was the man to do it with an authority. He’d heard Guardiola liken his ability of winning games on his own to Lionel Messi – he was on the back of scoring 18 goals since the turn of the year.
Foden fancied it. Since his birth in 2000, no other midfielder in Europe’s top leagues had scored more non-penalty goals in a single year for club and country than the 28 Foden plundered. Lampard, De Bruyne, Kaka, Ballack, Gerrard, Toure – none of them.
To revisit this is to illustrate how good Foden is and how easy that is to forget when watching a lost genius for City across a wretched season and, on Friday night, a right winger seemingly scared to express himself at Wembley.
This is nothing particularly new on the international front: his Euros were ordinary, starting every game but not contributing nearly enough. ‘Maybe I came up short,’ he said recently.
Phil Foden was seemingly scared to express himself during England’s win over Albania
His Euro 2024 campaign was ordinary and the hangover of that summer never fully cleared
He suffered from ‘mental fatigue’ at the start of the season and his brain had become foggy
Well short, really, and the hangover of that summer never fully cleared. Despite barely returning from holiday, Foden was surprisingly straight into Guardiola’s squad for the opening weekend of the season, playing 45 minutes at Chelsea, but wasn’t seen for almost a month after that with a mystery illness.
The 24-year-old has revealed that he suffered from ‘mental fatigue’ at the beginning of the season and that his brain had become foggy during training sessions. And he is understood to have had a physical problem too. Psychologist David Young is at the disposal of Guardiola’s players if required.
Both City and Foden’s representatives declined to confirm the nature of either issue, which creates a vacuum whereby mitigation for underperformance is unavailable and social media criticism – which Foden does read – is beginning to spiral out of control.
City’s players are known to have privately worried about Foden, who moved the family out to near Northwich, well away from Manchester and with a lake to fish nearby. He appeared to have lost weight to the naked eye.
Thomas Tuchel said after the Albania victory that Foden requires encouragement while pointing towards a player who had seen his confidence – that confidence evident at Mottram Hall – vanish. Given Tuchel is clearly on the clock and cannot afford passengers, Foden’s position in the starting XI surely will not be guaranteed.
He is known to have been somewhat frustrated at his role at the Euros, shunted out to the left in accommodating Jude Bellingham, but for a player who says he’ll play anywhere and can impact games from anywhere, it seems he’ll need to keep doing a job away from the vaunted No 10 spot.
It’s funny, in a way, that Foden’s output is actually in line with last year’s at City. He’s second behind Erling Haaland for goal contributions, standing at 15. Nobody has completed more key passes than him. It points to an entire team struggling because this is Foden’s down year yet nobody has taken on responsibility in a way he did last term.
But just looking at him, how he interacts in matches, tells all.
Foden is on the periphery and the midfielder has retreated back into his shell during games
City’s players have privately worried about Foden and he appeared to have lost weight
But this is not his first dip and what should not be in doubt is that he will come back
Foden is on the periphery, six of his seven league goals coming in four consecutive matches in January. There have been games where you think the real Foden has stood up, finally, only for him to retreat back into his shell. Carries into the penalty area and attempted dribbles are both down.
He’s not the only one, of course. But he is Kevin De Bruyne’s heir, plus the current FWA and PFA Player of the Year, so the spotlight is brighter.
This is not his first dip, with Guardiola always keen to stress that these things happen in careers, and it does come on the back of a season where Foden played 4,276 minutes for his club (only 51 fewer than Rodri) and then another 712 across the Euros and a friendly.
That actually took him beyond Rodri to a 4,988-minute campaign. The Spain midfielder has missed pretty much all of this with an ACL injury while Foden has plodded on.
He probably needs time away. Whether that comes, with the Club World Cup on the horizon as well as both City and England embarking on new eras, remains to be seen.
What should not be in doubt is that Phil Foden will come back. Just nobody is quite sure when at the moment.
