Phil Foden’s mental health battle revealed as Manchester City offer ‘armoury’ of expertise | OneFootball

Manchester City pulled together an ‘armoury of expertise’ in psychology as Phil Foden battled with mental health challenges earlier this year, it has been revealed.

Foden underwent a difficult 2024-25 campaign on and off the pitch by own his own admission in a range of interviews, struggling to replicate the levels he displayed to spearhead Manchester City to a fourth successive Premier League title in 2024 and winning the PFA Players’ Player of the Year award in the process.

The 25-year-old broke into Pep Guardiola’s first-team squad from the City Football Academy in 2017 and has since gone from strength to strength, establishing himself as one of England’s most gifted players and a leader in the new-look dressing room at the Etihad Stadium.

After helping Manchester City lift a historic treble in 2023, Foden enjoyed his best personal campaign wherein he amassed 27 goals and 13 assists in 53 outings in all competitions to truly stamp down his mark as the heir to long-serving creative genius Kevin De Bruyne.

However, Foden failed to match the high standards he has set for himself last season as Manchester City endured their most difficult season under Guardiola, finishing trophyless whilst recording third-place and Round of 16 finishes in the Premier League and UEFA Champions League respectively.

The Stockport-born attacker also lost his place in the England squad for the best part of nine months and it was only in November that Three Lions boss Thomas Tuchel re-called the Manchester City star to the National Team fold as Foden rediscovered his form at the Etihad Stadium after a delayed start to the 2025-26 campaign.

Guardiola shielded Foden from criticism in public during the latter’s rut in form and maintained strong support for the player he has witnessed closely become a man from a boy, with the pair understood to share a very close relationship owing to the length of time they have worked together.

According to a wide-ranging report from Mail Sport’s Jack Gaughan, those who know Foden say he is ‘a completely different person’ to earlier in the year, with his brain becoming foggy during training and stopping him from carrying on, enduring mental health problems.

It is revealed that Manchester City offered an armoury of psychological expertise and tests to their prized academy graduate, who had also made changes to his inner circle this year, including signing with Jonny Hatt’s Hattrick Management.

Foden is also revealed to have began individual coaching sessions with Jamie Reynolds across the summer, who has long been associated with Jack Grealish and keeps Manchester City’s number 47 ticking over without impinging on the club’s own training programmes.

Sources point out Guardiola himself is due credit for some of Foden’s upturn, with the club having held sheets around the midfielder to protect him as much as they could. A source said, “He (Guardiola) has put an arm around the shoulder,” believing in a ‘paternal relationship’.

A season below the mark was an inevitability for Foden, who witnessed huge success in his early seasons in the Manchester City senior ranks and has won everything there is to win at club level, though the Englishman will be desperate to maintain his National Team spot under Tuchel and spearhead his nation to World Cup glory next summer.