Phil Foden playing through the middle: A rare but majestic footballing treat

“Kevin is so important for us, like Erling,” Guardiola said before Manchester City’s victory at Everton. “I would say these two types of players don’t help you to play good, but these two guys help you to win games.”

What he means by that is that De Bruyne and Haaland, as undoubtedly brilliant as they are in the final third, do not help you build up from the back, to make the short, intricate passes that City need to help control matches. They help you score goals but they do not help you keep the ball, and to be a top side you need both.

Think about Guardiola berating Haaland at Burnley in August after the striker demanded Bernardo Silva play a ball in behind the defence just before half-time. The two players are on different wavelengths. Bernardo made the sensible decision, in Guardiola’s eyes, of keeping the ball and not risking a counter-attack, a loss of control. Haaland wanted to complete a first-half hat-trick.

City won the treble last season because they found the perfect blend of those two thought processes.

And that scenario is basically being played out in one person: Phil Foden.

Foden is, by nature, the same as De Bruyne and Haaland. He can pick up the ball, turn, drive towards goal (all in the blink of an eye) and play a pass or take a shot that can change a game.

For various reasons, though, City have not needed him to do that too much in the past 18 months. They have actually needed him to do more of the stuff that he is not so good at.

What he was able to do on Wednesday at Goodison Park was remind everybody of all the good bits, the bits that very few players in the Premier League can match.

City had started well, made mistakes and gone a goal down, the same sort of pattern that has meant they won just one of the previous six league matches. After the break they looked much brighter, but they still needed Foden to stand up and make the difference.

After the game, Guardiola explained his changes. “Rodri and John (Stones) and then Manu (Akanji) in the second half were not 2 v 1 against Andre Gomes, or 2 v 2, it was 3 v 3, so when that happens you have to go outside and to wingers.

“We were playing more direct to the winger, we had the man free there, they had four in the back, we had five in the final line, so when the ball is there you can run and we created in 5, 10, 15 mins the chances.

“But in the end it’s not about that because Phil Foden kicked the ball and put it in the net, the difference is that.”

By the end of the match, mostly once City had put the seal on their victory with Bernardo’s third goal, Foden was thriving. He picked up the ball in space and drove up the pitch. He lashed a stunning shot against the inside of the post and tested Jordan Pickford with another fierce strike from over 30 yards.

“We need him,” Guardiola also said. “Without Erling we need guys closer to the box with a sense of goal. Phil and Julian have this talent and that’s why Phil is playing more inside now because he has this sense to score.”

At the full-time whistle he soaked up the adulation of the travelling fans, as Guardiola sidled up beside him, urging the chants to continue.

It was the kind of performance that, in truth, Foden rarely gets the chance to make.

Guardiola built his treble-winning side around Haaland and De Bruyne: to ensure that their talents were fully harnessed, without letting City become more open than they had been during the false 9 era, almost everything else was tapered back.

Jack Grealish and Riyad Mahrez/Bernardo showed their value on the wings not just by dribbling past their markers but by slowing the game down, too, recycling possession. Ilkay Gundogan and Rodri regulated the tempo in midfield so that De Bruyne and Haaland could let their instincts run wild and the results were spectacular.

There was no room for another free-wheeler, though, either in midfield or on the wing, and so Foden often missed out. In that sense, De Bruyne’s injury should have provided the opportunity to get the academy graduate into that central role this season — the one he ‘loves’.

“You know how much I like playing in the middle,” he told the post-match reporter on Wednesday. “Thanks to the manager, he keeps playing me there at the moment and long may that continue because I enjoy it every time I play in there.”

He has only been playing there of late, though, because Haaland has been injured and Alvarez has moved up front, finally opening up that central role for Foden. The England international is more versatile than Alvarez, and the Argentinean brings certain qualities to that central role, too, and so Foden has often been used out wide for much of the season.

Another part of the reason he does not play centrally is because Guardiola is less comfortable indulging his natural instincts.

The City boss has been trying to change Foden, to add extra layers, levers, to his game, to try to replicate the balance that he managed across the entire team last season inside the academy graduate.

That is entirely normal; it is a manager’s job to make players better, and Guardiola has done a fantastic job of moulding Foden’s talents. It could be construed as subduing his natural ability but Guardiola’s goal has always been to ensure that he reaches his vast potential.

“Listen,” he told author Marti Perarnau in October 2016, when Foden was 16. “People have spoken to me a lot about Jadon Sancho and Brahim Diaz, and yes, they are very good. So good. I love them. But remember this other name: Phil Foden. I’m not lying to you, he’s awesome. He’ll play with me very soon. He’s an English player, very English, left foot, pale, thin as a rake, bow legged, but he protects the ball superbly and he has great vision. Foden, remember the name, he will be a beast.”

Fast forward seven years and City often need more of what Foden does not have than the brilliant traits that he does have. Last season, with De Bruyne and Haaland fit and firing, the last thing they needed — in Guardiola’s eyes — was another player who can pick the ball up and run. That is how Foden made his breakthrough in the team, a goalscoring left winger when City did not play with a striker. Eventually, Foden became the false 9 himself — probably City’s best option doing his best work with his back to goal.

Despite City being without De Bruyne all season and Haaland as well at the moment, Guardiola has had to make a concerted effort to regain the team’s control, their pausa, because the most attack-minded players cannot be slotted carefully into the framework of the team — they are the framework of the team.

With Grealish on the left, Bernardo/Mahrez on the right right and Gundogan in the middle, ahead of Rodri and Stones, you could cover for De Bruyne and Haaland quite comfortably by having Alvarez up front and have Foden behind him.

But they others are gone — sold or injured — and instead, because Guardiola will always believe that the best way to win football matches is to control them, Foden, Alvarez and Jeremy Doku have been asked to carry City’s attacks but, at the same time, urged to curb their natural instincts to some extent; to take safer, more sensible options.

The conflict comes in the decision making: what is the best option for a player who is comfortable taking on two players in the middle and sliding a through-ball to a striker? To  do that (even when the opportunity presents itself!) or play back to Rodri so he can find somebody on the wing who will ensure City have still got the ball in five seconds? The answer is almost always the latter for Guardiola but, in the heat of the moment, these guys so often choose the former — understandably so.

Guardiola has also backed up England manager Gareth Southgate’s comments about Foden needing to improve off the ball when it comes to playing centrally, in terms of tracking runners but also making more astute decisions when in possession, not forcing club or country into attacking situations when a bit of control is what the manager wants.

It cannot be easy to change the way you have played all your life and there is a feeling behind the scenes at City that Foden is not making huge strides on that front, although he certainly understands what City need to do to play well.

“The game on Tuesday (vs Urawa Red Diamonds) reminded me of how we used to play,” Foden said last week. “The control was there. I think we need to do a longer build up, keep the ball, take our chances.”

Putting it into practice has been harder, though. Guardiola knows Foden will never be a David Silva, and he should not be expected to be, but the City boss will try until his final day at the club to make him as rounded as possible.

Gundogan, the true heir to Silva, did not always have to be City’s tempo-setter in recent seasons; sometimes he could simply be their goal threat, and the dream scenario is that Foden can become something like that, to do both. If he becomes as good as Gundogan he will be one of the best midfielders to ever grace the Premier League.

Wednesday night was a reminder of exactly what Foden can do in his preferred position in the middle, a reminder of the player we have never really had the chance to see.

(Top photo by Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)