By Football Wonderkids Speaking to Harry Hudson

13th Nov, 2022 | 11:42am

Youth football expert hails Manchester City for development of 'phenomenal' Phil Foden

We’re delighted to welcome the founder of Kinetic Academy Harry Hudson as our exclusive columnist. Each week the youth football expert will be giving his views on the biggest talking points on wonderkids across the UK…

Manchester City may have lost in the dying moments against Brentford but wonderkid Phil Foden continued his sensational season so far.

The 22-year-old is enjoying his best run of form so far in his relatively young professional career having scored eight goals in all competitions so far and providing four assists for his teammates.

City were in need of a goal after Ivan Toney had given the Bees the lead and Foden turned up to smash home a fabulous finish on the stroke of half-time.

Even though Toney went on to score a late winner for Thomas Frank’s side, Foden came away from the game with plenty of credit and Kinetic Academy founder Harry Hudson wants him to be a guaranteed starter for England at the World Cup.

“He’s a phenomenal player, I’ve always thought Phil Foden was exceptional,” Hudson said to The Football Wonderkids. “To be fair to Pep (Guardiola), he’s managed his development in the past couple of years.

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“He’s not played him all the time because he’s managed to slowly bring him through and he’s now starting to show how good he can be.

“Of course, he’s going to be overshadowed by (Erling) Haaland’s numbers but that might not necessarily be the worst thing because it takes some of the pressure off Phil Foden.

“I would hope that Gareth Southgate has him as one of the first names on his teamsheet for the World Cup.”

England’s first game at the World Cup will see them play Iran at the Khalifa International Stadium in Qatar on Monday (21 November).

In other Manchester City news, Fabrizio Romano shared an update surrounding another of their academy graduates after a very good week for the Citizens.