Ipswich midfielder Kalvin Phillips says the “narrative” around his weight became a personal frustration.

Earlier this year Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola apologised for saying the midfielder was “overweight” on his return from the Qatar World Cup.

It was something former Leeds United boss Marcelo Bielsa worked on with the 28-year-old during their time at Elland Road.

Former Leeds team-mate Patrick Bamford felt the Argentine was the “harshest” on Phillips.

Speaking on Bamford’s My Mate’s A Footballer podcast on BBC Sounds, Phillips said: “When we first came in, Bielsa – being South American – was obsessed with body composition, weights and body fats. I was on the higher end of the team, if not the highest.

“I had a pre-season where, for about three weeks, I’d go home and I’d just have a protein shake for my dinner and then come in the next day and I just have to keep losing weight.

“He always pushed me to be on a certain weight tag. Obviously I respected it, but then I knew that I can’t starve myself or I can’t dehydrate myself because eventually I’m going to get injured or stop performing.”

England international Phillips has praised Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna for how he has been since making his loan move to the club in the summer.

“That [overweight] narrative on social media just kind of grew and grew. Every club that I’d go to, I spoke to the manager and the nutritionist, and they’d always speak about weight before they’d say anything else,” Phillips added.

“I was getting quite frustrated with it, but now I’ve come to Ipswich, the manager is an unbelievable person as well as a manager.

“We spoke about all the past stuff that happened in my career. He just said, ‘I’m big on body composition and I just want you to get to where you were when you left Leeds. That’ll give us a good starting point for you to push on and hopefully get to back, back to where you were.'”

Listen to the full episode on BBC Sounds