Pep Guardiola was delighted for Kalvin Phillips who tucked away his penalty as Manchester City beat Red Star Belgrade in the Champions League.
It was Phillip’s first goal of the season, having had limited minutes on the pitch so far this campaign.
The £50M midfielder has been rumoured to be looking for a move away in January, with his boss is still unsure about the former Leeds man’s future.
He’s an incredibly good taker. I know Phil had ambitions to do it but Kalvin is an incredible penalty taker”, Guardiola said.
“The game was not over and for his confidence … it was a difficult game because they made man-to-man so aggressive, a lot of interruptions and so many fouls. it was not easy to play comfortably but in the right moments we found our quality.
I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “Now he is here and there are a lot of games until the end of January and hopefully he can help us.”
It was a night of positives for the youth of Manchester City with both academy stars Oscar Bobb and Micah Hamilton gaining their first senior starts, and both scoring in Serbia
City’s win sees them sail through Group G with maximum points, with City awaiting their knockout opponents on Monday.
Guardiola was full of plaudits for the youngster’s efforts, starting with Micah Hamilton.
“What a goal, eh! And what a game. I’m so happy for him,” he said.
“He’s training quite often with us, we saw his skills up front 1-vs-1 and he made a fantastic goal and penalty and when he could not be 1-vs-1 he gave extra passes. Defensively he was aggressive.
“Congratulations to the academy for the last years, how many players came up, how many players we sold to the Premier League and Championship and even more.
“After we conceded a goal, we were stable after that and he played really well as well. I’m very pleased for Micah for his debut.
“It’s not easy to give opportunities in that level because in big clubs people don’t wait but the situation we had was really good. At the end I wanted to put Max (Alleyne) on as a central defender because he has a special quality with the ball but the game was not quite under control but it’s a big compliment for all the academy for many years.”
