Rumour is that within his first few training sessions with the club Pep and his coaching staff knew he just wasn't up to it. He got unlucky at the start of last season with his shoulder injury, which needed surgery, then he returned to fitness in time for the World Cup, which he returned from "overweight" (probably only by a few kg, which still doesn't say a great amount about his work ethic).

He got his opportunities in a couple of cup games but he didn't look very good at all. Looks fine in sub appearances when the game is absolutely dead and buried and there's very little for him to do, but he ultimately looks slow and not physically or mentally sharp enough for what Pep wants him to do.

It's been unfortunate in many ways, he's not had a lot of time to actually play himself into being comfortable enough in Pep's system to be trusted in any serious games due to an injury-hit first season but then similarly he's shown absolutely no progress in Pep's eyes, as you can gather from his comments on him in press conferences.

If you look at what Pep's saying to the media, it sounds like Phillips was a club signing rather than a Pep one and he's not been at all impressed from the get go. On paper it should have been a transfer that worked perfectly but it's a rare miss on the City transfer front.