Hammers announce Phillips arrival
West Ham United have formally announced the arrival of Kalvin Phillips on loan until the end of the season. The 31 times caped England international may make his first appearance for us against Bournemouth in next Thursday’s Premier League fixture with AFC Bournemouth at the London Stadium.
Phillips has had next to no chance to show what he can do in a City shirt and will be desperate to do well for us given our bid for a top six place and Europa League challenge.
In revealing the news on the official site the club gave no details of whether there is a permanent stay option included in the deal but when we asked the question the media department simply answered: “There’s not!”
Phillips led Leeds to the Premier League before transferring to Manchester City in summer 2022 and winning the Premier League, FA Cup, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup last year.
However, he chose to join City when we and they were bidding for him, although it has far from worked out for him under Pep Guardiola who admits taking responsibility for not giving him his chance to impress .
Hopefully his loss will be David Moyes‘ gain for the defensive midfielder who looks booked to line up alongside Edson Alvarez in front of the back four.
Kalvin commented to www.whufc.com: “I’m really pleased to be here. There’s always been a lot of speculation about me moving to West Ham, so I’m really excited to get going now.
“There’s so much to look forward to in the second half of the season for the Club and I can’t wait to be part of it.
“There’s an unbelievable group here and if I can come in and add the quality that I know I’m capable of, I’m sure we can give the West Ham fans plenty to be excited about between now and the end of the season.”
Manager David Moyes believes Phillips will add a great deal to his squad for what promises to be an exciting second half of the 2023/24 campaign.
He added: “We are really pleased to bring a player of Kalvin’s quality to West Ham United. We’ve been big admirers of him for a long time and we believe that he will add strength and competition to our squad.
“Kalvin is an England international midfielder, with proven Premier League experience. We’re excited to welcome him into the group and look forward to working with him.”
While it’s good to get confirmation of Phillips joining the Hammers on a loan for 6 months, it’s been a ridiculous ongoing contradiction of “yes there is, no there isn’t” an option to buy at the end of the loan contract. I just wish all the journos would get the story right before telling us!