"The player most similar" to Lionel Messi in his current slump: Pep Guardiola’s star pupil faces a double wake-up call

But what about Lionel Messi, one might ask? The Manchester City manager had a telling comparison ready at the end of November: "He’s been brilliant all season," Guardiola said of the 25-year-old Foden. "I remember a player I coached at Barcelona who would cut inside the box and shoot from the edge. He’s the most similar player I’ve ever seen."

These words seemed to spur Foden on. They came at a time when the attacking winger was entering the best phase of his current season. In four league matches – all of which City won – Foden scored six goals and provided one assist.

Although Guardiola played Foden for the full 90 minutes in each of the following four Premier League matches, a clear decline has been evident since then. Foden has made 12 appearances since then and went 13 matches without scoring a single goal. He scored his last goal at the end of the aforementioned run, on 14 December.

Foden is really struggling; things started to go downhill around the turn of the year. He hasn’t played a full 90 minutes since early January. Of the 20 matches City have played in 2026, he hasn’t featured in half of them (six times on the bench, four times in the squad but not used).

It’s striking: in the big games, Guardiola has been relying on others for quite some time now. In the recent 3-0 Champions League defeat to Real Madrid, Foden watched from the sidelines for the full 90 minutes, just as he did against Liverpool in February.

Guardiola wouldn’t be Guardiola, of course, if he didn’t brush off the English press’s numerous questions about Foden in his typical manner. “I have zero, zero, zero doubts about Phil,” the Spaniard said a few weeks ago. “He just needs to focus on playing football and going fishing. If he does that, Phil will be back. It’s not even 20 centuries ago that he was the best player in the Premier League.”

That’s not wrong, but in elite sport, just under two years can easily feel like an eternity. During the 2023/24 title-winning campaign, Foden was the standout player in Guardiola’s squad, scoring 19 goals and providing eight assists in 35 games; the league’s award for him was thoroughly deserved.

Looking at the bigger picture, however, things have gone slightly downhill for Foden since then. Although he was a regular under national team manager Gareth Southgate during the run to the European Championship final, he failed to contribute a single goal. Things just don’t seem to be clicking for Foden with the Three Lions anyway.

He now has 47 international caps to his name. Given his quality and his usual scoring rate, however, just four goals and ten assists (only three goal contributions in major tournaments) are simply poor. On the international stage, Foden has rarely been able to replicate his form from Manchester.

His current slump therefore comes at an inopportune time in this respect too. Whilst Southgate and Guardiola have always placed great trust in him, national team manager Thomas Tuchel has taken a slightly different approach so far. He has only selected Foden for two of his five training camps to date.

After missing out on three consecutive squads, Tuchel brought Foden back into the squad in November and promised him a “central role”. Yet in the two matches against Serbia and Albania, he was used as a substitute for just 53 of a possible 180 minutes.

Tuchel also sees Foden as a number ten rather than a winger. In central attack, however, the competition is fierce. As soon as he is fit again, Jude Bellingham is likely to have his place there for the upcoming World Cup just as securely as Morgan Rogers. Eberechi Eze is also still in the running.

Speaking of competition: Foden naturally faces that at Man City too. And that goes against Guardiola’s earlier prediction. “He is the only player who must not be sold under any circumstances. Not even for 500 million euros,” Pep wrote in 2019 in his book “Pep’s City: The Making of a Superteam” and made it clear: “Phil isn’t going anywhere. He is Manchester City. We won’t sign anyone to replace him.”

That was a fib, to say the least. After all, several players arrived – Ferran Torres (2020), Jack Grealish (2021), Jeremy Doku (2023), Savinho (2024) and, most recently, Rayan Cherki (2025) and Antoine Semenyo (2026) – who operate in a very similar role to Foden. Even last season, he was no longer in the starting line-up for 23 of his 49 competitive matches.

The remainder of the season – even though it can only bring silverware for City in the two cup competitions, given they are likely to miss out on the league and Champions League titles – will therefore be crucial for Foden. He can count himself lucky that Guardiola remains fond of him – even though he has lost importance to the team over the past few weeks.

“He is my son, he is our son,” said the Spaniard. “Step by step, he will come back. We are trying to protect him and get him back to his best. In an eight- or nine-year career, there are sometimes ups and downs. It’s as simple as that. I will not be the one to doubt Phil’s quality and his importance.”

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