It would be fair to say Kalvin Phillips' Manchester City career has taken a while to get going.
Signed at the start of July for £42million, the 27-year-old left boyhood club Leeds United to step up to the elite level of domestic football, as he had done on an international stage. But a combination of injury problems and the adaptation period when moving clubs had restricted the midfielder to just 95 minutes off the bench before Wednesday's 2-0 Carabao Cup defeat to Southampton - a first start in sky blue which lasted just over an hour.
Despite Pep Guardiola's rather stubborn claim that his tactics are 'so simple', a number of big-name signings have taken time to find their feet at the Etihad - most recently Jack Grealish, who admitted he could not believe how hard it was to settle in to his new manager's exacting style of play. And in Phillips' case, that period is no easier when you are competing with Rodri, arguably the world's best in that role.
