{"id":179816,"date":"2025-10-05T04:19:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T04:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/179816\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T04:19:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T04:19:10","slug":"emotional-pep-guardiola-hails-phil-foden-for-opening-up-on-mental-health-as-man-city-boss-insists-stars-joy-laugh-and-voice-in-the-dressing-room-are-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/179816\/","title":{"rendered":"Emotional Pep Guardiola hails Phil Foden for opening up on mental health as Man City boss insists star’s ‘joy, laugh and voice in the dressing room are back’"},"content":{"rendered":"

By JACK GAUGHAN<\/a> <\/p>\n

Published: 17:30 EDT, 4 October 2025 | Updated: 18:48 EDT, 4 October 2025 <\/p>\n

An emotional Pep Guardiola<\/a> heralded Phil Foden<\/a> for opening up on mental health difficulties that engulfed last year.<\/p>\n

Guardiola was impassioned as he paid tribute to the Manchester City<\/a> midfielder, who is approaching top form despite missing out on another England<\/a> squad.<\/p>\n

Foden revealed that he had endured \u2018things off the pitch mentally\u2019 and opted to take time off to reset, with his manager respecting the 25-year-old\u2019s attitude towards his problems.<\/p>\n

\u2018How strong he is for admitting it,\u2019 Guardiola said. \u2018A figure like Phil can be open minded and speak to all of society. Today the young teenagers and even older people struggle with that – nobody is away from that, everyone can be that.<\/p>\n

\u2018To accept the reality, wow. That\u2019s why when I see him now – and forget about the level he is performing, which is a top level… it’s about how he has been.<\/p>\n

\u2018The joy in the training session is back, his laugh and his voice in the locker room. That is enough. It\u2019s just what we want.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Pep Guardiola has praised Phil Foden (left) for the way he talked about mental health struggles<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The City boss said that Foden’s ‘joy, laugh and voice in the dressing room’ have returned<\/p>\n

Foden\u2019s start to this season was derailed by niggling injuries and he had struggled for starts during the Club World Cup.<\/p>\n

But after being thrown in from the start for last month\u2019s Manchester derby \u2013 scoring the opener during a 3-0 win \u2013 the academy graduate has flourished, becoming an integral part of their unbeaten run.<\/p>\n

Foden has six goals on his last four trips to Sunday\u2019s opponents Brentford, including a hat-trick in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re always there for Phil,\u2019 Guardiola added. \u2018The club for that is beyond exceptional. I\u2019m happy step by step he\u2019s getting better.<\/p>\n

\u2018We always let them feel we are there, unconditionally whatever happens, I don\u2019t care your performance when you feel that way, the human being comes first in front of everything in life.<\/p>\n

\u2018We try to take care of the people in that way. Everybody knows the level he played last season and the level this season is another situation. Phil feels good.\u2019<\/p>\n

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\n Emotional Pep Guardiola hails Phil Foden for opening up on mental health as Man City boss insists star’s ‘joy, laugh and voice in the dressing room are back’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By JACK GAUGHAN Published: 17:30 EDT, 4 October 2025 | Updated: 18:48 EDT, 4 October 2025 An emotional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[97,218,59,399,19404,35917,217,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-179816","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-gb","11":"tag-manchester-city","12":"tag-pep-guardiola","13":"tag-phil-foden","14":"tag-sport","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}