Manchester City midfielder Kalvin Phillips is set to leave the club on loan as he nears a reported move to newly promoted Ipswich Town.

Phillips struggled to establish himself at City following a £45m transfer from Leeds United in 2022. He started just six times in his first 18 months in Manchester and finished last season on loan at West Ham United, where his playing time wans’t much better after a poor start.

The former England Men’s Player of the Year returned to City for pre-season and collected a Community Shield winner’s medal last weekend as an unused substitute at Wembley. But his immediate future for the duration of 2024/25 is elsewhere.

Fabrizio Romano writes that an Ipswich medical was completed on Thursday night, with the Suffolk club getting ready to announce his arrival at some point over the weekend.

Phillips would be a seventh summer signing for Ipswich but offers almost as much Premier League experience than the rest combined. The 28-year-old also specifically knows what it is like to be newly promoted, having made his top flight debut with Leeds in 2020 at the age of 24.

City’s options won’t much change without Phillips in the fold, although it is a possibility that the club uses the surprise windfall from selling Julian Alvarez for £81.5m to invest in a new midfielder – Newcastle United’s Bruno Guimaraes is a player who has been of interest.

Pep Guardiola has also wanted to promote from within, starting home-grown talents James McAtee and Nico O’Reilly in the Community Shield. That was also his likely tactic to replace Alvarez, with a big role expected for attacker Oscar Bobb until he was cruelly struck down with injury.

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