'Under the bus' Leeds United export deserves more than EURO 2024 justification for boring underperformance

Pep Guardiola's post-World Cup public discussion of the midfielder's weight was a painful affair for Phillips, as he admitted to The Observer after sealing a loan move away from the Etihad: "After the World Cup was probably the toughest, when Pep came out and said I was overweight. I did not disagree with him but obviously I took a big knock on my confidence and how I felt at City." There's overweight and then there's being 1.5kg over the target set for you by the sports scientists and nutritionists at an elite football club due to what the player felt was a miscommunication over his return date. Though it is always, of course, part of Phillips' job to return to his day job in the specified condition, the lack of nuance in football led to inevitable mockery. He was able to laugh off the chants at Elland Road when he returned in sky blue, but Guardiola's unguarded commentary left a mark, not only on Phillips but his family and mum Lindsay.

Imagine how the 28-year-old and his England-mad family must have reacted when Southgate deflected attention from his own tactical struggles by letting Phillips' name escape from his lips. It was every bit as strange as it was unfair, having failed to get what he wanted out of right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold in the centre of the park against Denmark, to suggest England's problem was actually the absence of a natural successor for a still active but unselected player.

"We know it is an experiment and we don't have a natural replacement for Kalvin Phillips, but we're trying some different things and at the moment we're not flowing as we'd like, that's for sure," said Southgate after the 1-1 draw and a performance that drew boos from the travelling support. And so having had to deal with the disappointment of his club career faltering, the subsequent impact on his national team involvement and an almost inevitable absence from the EURO 2024 squad, Phillips was dragged back into the Three Lions discussion. Not in the team due to form, said Southgate, but apparently irreplaceable in a nation that boasts a terrifying array of midfield talent - both defensive and offensive. The best man for the job, but not good enough to do it this time round. A bad workman blames his tools, so what would you call one who blames the absence of one he deliberately left at home? It smacked of a manager casting around for something, anything to say to justify a pair of lacklustre displays and a continuation of a theme. Boring, staid, underperforming England.

What might be most strange about it, too, is how seriously Southgate evidently takes the pastoral care of players and the efforts he has often gone to in order to protect them, whether in or out of his favour. The caution seen in some of his tactics is just as present in his approach to publicly addressing individuals. And for a man so fond of Phillips, a statement like that - not to mention the potential ridicule it opened up for both he and a player who ran himself into the ground to get to a major championship final - was just plain odd. Phillips deserves better, not just from Southgate, but whoever he entrusts with the next chapter of his career.