Kalvin Phillips had not had the best of outings in Manchester City’s previous couple of pre-season games – but the midfielder enjoyed a better performance against Barcelona. Phillips featured in midfield against Celtic and AC Milan and drew criticism for his showings. Against Celtic, he was getting caught too high up the pitch. So ahead of the Barcelona games, Pep Guardiola came up with a new idea – and that was to play Phillips as a centre-back. The player was seen working on defensive shape in a training session, which was seemingly a hint that he would play at the back against Barca. Josko …
