by New season, New Manchester City. And if things go well, Old Phil Foden. The best season of his career was followed by the worst. And yet, in the curiosity of a tournament that belonged to one season nor the other, there were hints that he returned to the kind of form that he saw the football player of the year. The Club World Cup can offer a long -term advantage to the city if it offers a shift in Momentum for Foden.
“I wouldn’t say it [my] Absolutely the best, but I definitely felt a lot sharper, I also managed to score a few goals, “he said. Three, to be precise, the last are best; His 100th for the city came in the 4-3 defeat against Al Hilal and was special.
About 27 of that century arrived in 2023-24. If Foden can return to that sparkle, this can be particularly topical.
Even if City has had an intake of players, various attack -oriented midfielders, perhaps the largest in their history is. One theory was for years that, despite their differences, Foden was the successor who waited for Kevin De Bruyne, another that Pep Guardiola could not really build a team around him while the Belgian was around and was instrumental.
Will he now? “I’m not sure where the manager sees me this year,” said Foden, awaiting a discussion with Guardiola. “I can play in different positions, but we all know that my position is the inside, so let’s see what is happening. I am not here to replicate what KEV did because we all know how good he was and what he did for the club. It is about doing my best, getting the level of the year, I want to go back.”
If he does that, it will be in a different context, another team. City had a makeover of £ 300 million in 2025, four recruits in the winter window are followed by six in the summer transfer market-even as one of those arrivals, Vior Reis, is borrowed from Girona and another, Sverre Nypan, can also leave to get the first team of football for the season.
City had even wounded 26 players in training on Tuesday, too much to the taste of Guardiola, even with three others. Foden is not certain, even if the dressing room in the Etihad Stadium is large enough to house them all.
Yet he felt that the revision was necessary. As the loyal side of one big side, such as De Bruyne and Kyle Walker, because Jack Grealisk is Surplus for requirements, the city is filled with arrivals, the summer inflow of Tijjani Reijnders, Rayan Cherki, Rayan Ait-Nouri and James Trafford follows previous deals such as Omar Marmouszez.
Foden thought that City needed newcomers. “It always comes at a time when a club has to add new players and freshen up things and we have done that in this transfer window and that can only be good for us, because the players we have brought are very high and fit into the team and give us something we need. We can all see their quality of the club world and what they bring to the team.
Another difference after a season when City lost 17 games, walking at 13 points behind Liverpool and 22nd ended in the Champions League group phases: Rodri is back. If he and Foden were their excellent individuals in 2023-24, they each lost in different ways, the Spaniard unsuitable, the Englishman out of shape.
Rodri has recovered from his cruciate ligament injury. Foden warned against too much, too fast, but nevertheless enthusiastically about the quality of the balloon d’Or winner. “It will cost him for a while to return to his entire fitness and sharpness because it is such a long injury, but we all know what Rodri can do,” he said. “He can’t be stopped. If you play next to him is incredible. He just gives you a safe feeling. He doesn’t lose the ball and he does everything.”
That would, some say, City used to be in their all -conquering days. They looked poor and weak last season. Now Foden hopes that the combination of proven winners and newly recruited talents can have chemistry to bring them back to the top. They try to make up for it last year, just as he is.
“I think everyone wants to make up for last season,” he added. “We all want to get our best and win titles. We have a lot of experience in the dressing room, with Bernardo [Silva] Being captain and hopefully he can turn on the boys. That is positive if you have done it before, you know how to do it. “And now, he hopes, they know how to do it again.
