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WORDS Chris Burke | PHOTOGRAPHY Michael Regan

You’re only as good as your last match. Reputation counts for nothing if you can’t live up to the hype. Every play is dissected and every moment amplified. There is no final whistle, as seasons stretch from one into the next. Players discuss the physical toll on their bodies, but mentally too there is no time to rest. Success can come down to who copes best with that pressure, who doesn’t let it affect their game. For Manchester City midfielder Phil Foden, blocking out the noise comes down to a single thought as he steps out onto the pitch. “I’m going to make something happen here.”

Foden has been doing just that for the best part of a decade already. Can he really be only 25? More than eight years and 350 games have come and gone since his senior City debut, and Foden has claimed a remarkable six Premier League titles and a Champions League crown in that time. If that reads like a simple trajectory of success and progress, it’s been anything but.  

After a season to forget in 2024/25, the mission now is finding his way back to centre stage, both figuratively and literally as he grapples with a new remit on the pitch – taking over the creative reins in the middle. This season, with Kevin De Bruyne departed and Pep Guardiola rethinking his tactics, Foden has been recast in a deeper role with freedom to push forward.  

A goal spree at the end of last year showed the promise of that approach, including a first Champions League double against Dortmund. “When you score, there’s just a feeling when you go onto the pitch – you feel like you’re going to score again,” he says. “For me, there’s no better confidence going into a game than when you scored in the previous game. I feel like you just go into the game thinking, ‘I can score again.’ When I’m scoring a lot of goals, I just feel like more goals are coming, which is a good feeling.”

Goals have been harder to come by in recent weeks, a combination of a drop in form and stiff competition for places. Nonetheless, Foden has undoubtedly experienced a boost in self-belief since last summer. Reluctant once again to leave the training pitch, Foden began this campaign by banishing the weariness of 2024/25, when he admitted to being weighed down by off-field issues – so much so that he asked to be excused England duty in May. “I feel you just have to be patient, just believe in yourself,” he adds, a message worth embracing more than ever as he strives to reassert himself in the closing months of the season, particularly with a World Cup on the horizon.