Aston Villa can sign Kalvin Phillips as upgrade as £45m Manchester City development emerges – BBC pundit
We’re delighted to welcome former Aston Villa full-back Alan Hutton as our exclusive columnist. Each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at Villa Park…
Alan Hutton isn’t sure whether Kalvin Phillips would be interested in leaving Manchester City for Aston Villa even though it’s been a tough debut season for him at the Etihad.
Pep Guardiola signed Phillips, 27, for a starting fee of £42million from Leeds United last summer but he’s since played just 14 times in all competitions and not started a single Premier League match.
Aston Villa were linked with signing Phillips when he was at Leeds but speculation has fired up again recently with Football Insider reporting on 10 April that the Villans have a “strong interest” in the England international.
It is understood that Man City would want £45million for Phillips, which would make him a new club-record signing at Villa Park if they do sign him.
Hutton believes Villa are already well-equipped in defensive midfield positions due to Boubacar Kamara and Douglas Luiz.
However, he does admit suggest Arsenal’s reported interest in Luiz [The Sun] means a replacement may be needed for the Brazilian.
Speaking to Villa News, Hutton said: “As long as Emery sees him as an upgrade on the players he’s already got. If you look at them, Kamara can do that defensive role and Douglas Luiz can too. Does Emery see Phillips as being an upgrade on those?
“Kamara’s only new at the club but Luiz, there’s a chance he could leave for the likes of Arsenal.
“I think Phillips coming in and playing every week won’t make them a better team. It’ll be really good competition but if you’re going to push higher up the league, you need these sorts of players to be pushing you on.
“For me, the big question is whether Phillips wants to leave Manchester City to go to Aston Villa. That’s no disrespect to Villa but it hasn’t really worked out for him at this moment in time and if I was playing, I’d want to fight to stay where I was at one of the best teams in Europe.”
Phillips has only played 65 minutes of action in the Premier League this season for City while he’s also failed to start a Champions League match.
He’s had injury issues but they subsided before the World Cup with Guardiola clearly not as keen on the ex-Leeds star as many would have expected after buying him in the summer.
In other Aston Villa news, we can exclusively reveal that Manchester United are set to sign this highly-rated Villa player.