Fabrizio Romano: November D-Day likely for Kalvin Phillips amid Everton transfer speculation
Fabrizio Romano isn’t aware of any Everton talks to sign Manchester City midfielder Kalvin Phillips in January after he was linked with a January move to Goodison Park.
On Tuesday (10 October), iNews reported that Phillips, 27, is set to leave the Etihad in the next transfer window with Everton and Newcastle among the clubs interested in the England international.
It was claimed that the success of the Blues’ pursuit of Phillips could come down to whether 777 Partners complete a takeover in time for January.
Writing via his Daily Briefing on Wednesday (11 October), Romano reported that Phillips won’t be making any decisions on his Man City future until next month at the earliest.
“Despite links with Newcastle and Everton, I’m not aware of concrete talks on this one,” said the Italian journalist.
“Phillips wanted to stay at City this summer despite some approaches, so he’s still focused on doing his best for City and then a decision will be made later, like November or December.
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“Newcastle won’t decide anything on transfer targets before they know what happens in their Champions League group.”
It’s all going to depend on money but if money was no object in January, Phillips would probably be a good signing for Everton.
Sure, he’s hardly played for Man City but despite Pep Guardiola’s failure to play the former Leeds midfielder, he’s remained a part of Gareth Southgate’s England squad because he regularly does well for the Three Lions.
Marcelo Bielsa turned Phillips into one of the best English midfielders during his time at Elland Road and there’s no way that he’s suddenly become Championship quality again after just over a year of being training by Guardiola, one of the best managers ever.
He’s not played but that’s largely down to Rodri’s world-class form at the Etihad – not because Phillips is bad.
Everton already have two players on loan in Arnaut Danjuma and Jack Harrison so they won’t be able to sign Phillips on a loan-to-buy in January unless a permanent deal is made somewhere.
Man City could be open to a cheap, straight-cash deal but that remains to be seen. They may want to loan Phillips out, let him do well for a few months and then flog him for more money in the summer.
We’d take him though, 100 per cent.
