Kalvin Phillips sale and three other deals - Man City's dream January transfer window
Manchester City seldom need to panic buy in the January transfer window. They do things properly in the market and that has brought them unprecedented rewards in their glittering trophy cabinet.
Pep Guardiola and City won the lot last season. The treble-winners made it three Premier League wins in a row as and also landed the FA Cup and a first Champions League crown.
That historic triumph presented a mini-crossroads as important players such as Ilkay Gundogan and Riyad Mahrez headed for pastures new. Centre-back Aymeric Laporte also departed and Academy graduate Cole Palmer joined Chelsea in a £42.5million transfer.
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City did their utmost to replace that quartet with Josko Gvardiol, Mateo Kovacic, Matheus Nunes and Belgian star Jeremy Doku coming in. Key figures behind the scenes splashed out £200million on those additions - but recouped almost half that amount to throw straight into the mid-season kitty. Not that Guardiola will need it. The former Barcelona manager has welcomed back Kevin De Bruyne from injury.
Generally speaking, City are well-stocked across the board and departures might be their main priority this month. But there is not too much business that needs to be done in that regard either, aside from sorting out Kalvin Phillips' future to enable the former Leeds United talisman to get back playing somewhere.
Things have not got to plan for Phillips since his £42million switch from Elland Road and Guardiola not so long ago apologised to his midfielder over how the move has unfolded. Phillips, 28, has started six times across 18 months in all competitions, but there will be no shortage of takers for
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