Ipswich Town midfielder Kalvin Phillips takes on his former loan club West Ham this Saturday. Speaking to former Leeds team-mate Patrick Bamford and comedian Joe Wilkinson on the My Mate's a Footballer podcast, the England international has discussed his time with the Hammers, the 'weight narrative' around him and why he joined the Blues this summer.
"(Ex Leeds manager Marcelo) Bielsa is obsessed with body composition and weight - and I was on the higher end of the team, if not the highest. We had a pre-season where for three weeks I'd go home and I'd literally just have a protein shake for my dinner.
"I just had to keep losing weight, losing weight. He was like that until the last week I was there. He always pushed me to be on a certain weight target. I obviously respected it, but I knew that I couldn't starve myself or dehydrate myself because eventually I was going to get injured or stop performing.
"Only recently, since I've come to Ipswich, have I got to the target, round about, that Biesla set me. The manager here is very big on body composition as well and I thought 'I'm not getting off to a bad start here, I need to make sure my weight's on point'.
"It's just become a narrative with me. You obviously heard about the time when Pep (Guardiola) came out and said that I was overweight after the World Cup. That narrative on social media just grew and grew into something that it wasn't.
"Now I've come to Ipswich and the manager is an unbelievable person as well as a manager. We spoke about all the past stuff that happened in my career. He just said he wanted me to get to where I was when I was at Leeds."
ON WEST HAM LOAN SPELL
It's fair to say that Phillips' loan spell at West Ham in the second half of last season didn't go to plan.
In his three starts, he gave away a goal against Bournemouth, was sent off for two quick yellow cards at Nottingham Forest and was subbed at half-time when the team was 2-0 down against Burnley.
He came on at Newcastle when the Hammers were 3-1 up, gave a penalty away and David Moyes' men ended up losing 4-3. When getting on the coach after that match, Phillips responded to abuse from his own fans with a choice gesture.
"(When coming to Ipswich) I made a decision that I wanted to play my football, not stress free, but with less stress and less eyes on me maybe," he reflected.
"When I went to West Ham I felt like there were quite a lot of eyes on me because it was my first loan move since going to City. Obviously it didn't work out well and I got quite a bit of stick. Sometimes you can handle that well, sometimes you can go the other way and handle it not so well!"
ON JOINING IPSWICH TOWN
"I'm loving it. It's a lovely part of the world. I never expected to be down here, but it just happened.
"I spoke to McKenna in pre-season and he was very keen on bringing me here. Obviously a I knew Leif (Davis). Leif was Facetiming me every day for the three weeks before I signed!
"When I spoke to the manager I just knew he would put trust in me and make sure everything he did was to my benefit and would make sure I got better every day as long as I went along with everything he wanted.
"Having a proper conversation with him made me realise that I've kind of missed that in the last few transfer windows. Obviously City was City, and I'm always going to make that decision to go there. Then I went to West Ham. David Moyes was a lovely guy, and we spoke a lot, but it was more towards the end of the season. I wish I'd spoken to him a lot more at the start and told him how I felt.
"I just wanted to make sure my family felt happy about it. My girlfriend Ashleigh will happily go wherever I want to go. It was a decision we made.
“The main reason I came to Ipswich was just just to get back playing football week in week out, and make sure that I'm fit again, and I'm not getting many injuries.
“Just back to enjoying my football because obviously I loved it at City, they’re the best team in the world, they’ve got amazing players and amazing people there, but it’s kind of draining when you know you’re not going to play on the weekend and you’ve still got to go in and train as well as you can and hopefully make yourself better and better everyday. But with nothing to look forward to on the weekend it’s hard.
“It just got to a point where I knew that I probably weren't going to play much because of the players that play in front of me, which you know, I can't really argue about that.”
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