‘Full Agreement’—Man City’s Kalvin Phillips Lined Up for Shock Loan

England’s former player of the year has seen his career fall apart since joining Manchester City.

Kalvin Phillips has played just once this season. | Robbie Jay Barratt/AMA/Getty Images

Forgotten Manchester City midfielder Kalvin Phillips will finish the season with Championship club Sheffield United, after it was reported a shock loan deal has been agreed.

Phillips made his first City appearance in almost two years in September when he featured for the final seven minutes of a Carabao Cup win over Huddersfield Town. But that has been the former England midfielder’s only game this season, having failed to resurrect his career during a spell at Ipswich Town in 2024–25 that was prematurely curtailed by injury.

Yet Phillips will now have the opportunity to begin playing again by dropping down a division. The Athletic writes that a straight loan with no option to buy has been set up with Sheffield United, pending a successful medical. It will run until the summer.

The Blades are treading water in the bottom half of the Championship table, closer to the relegation zone than the promotion playoffs. But Phillips, named England Men’s Player of the Year off the back of his performances at Euro 2020, at least has extensive experience of the league with Leeds United.

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What Next for Kalvin Phillips?

Phillips failed to reignite his career while on loan at Ipswich last season. | MI News/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Unfortunately for Phillips, signing with Manchester City has ruined his career. It was a dream move at the time, handpicked to join the then reigning Premier League champions, but he needed surgery on a shoulder injury just weeks into his first season and was irreparably set back.

He was still selected for the 2022 World Cup by Gareth Southgate, only to have Pep Guardiola publicly state that the player was “overweight” when he reported back to Manchester after the tournament, for which the manager did apologise. But his City career never recovered.

The long-term contract Phillips signed when he joined the club from Leeds in a £45 million ($61.4 million) deal in the summer of 2022 remarkably still has two more seasons left to go after this one and City cannot easily release him until 2028.

Part of the problem is that Phillips has a salary far higher than the level he has fallen to. No club in the Championship could come close to matching a reported £150,000 weekly wages. It is his right to claim that—worth nearly £8 million per season—for his family’s long-term security, but it may be that City have to offer some sort of payout or compensation to mutually cancel his contract sooner.

It makes the move to Bramall Lane just a temporary fix, although it potentially puts the 30-year-old in the shop window to move permanently ahead of 2026–27.

After watching him struggle for three years, including difficult spells with West Ham United, Ipswich and then failing to land a new team for the first half of 2025–26, there is also little incentive for clubs to take a gamble on him, making this a hard cycle to break.

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