Kevin Phillips gives blunt answer when asked if he’d join Jack Ross’s coaching staff

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Kevin Phillips seemingly won’t be heading back to Sunderland any time soon.

Sunderland hero Kevin Phillips has told Roker Report that he would not return to the club as first-team coach to Jack Ross.

The Black Cats appointed Ross as their new manager last summer, luring the Scot from St Mirren as Chris Coleman’s replacement at the Stadium of Light.

Ross has Sunderland contending for promotion back to the Championship this season, but some will remember that he wasn’t the only man linked with the job in 2018.

In May 2018, The Sun reported that Sunderland were eyeing up club hero Kevin Phillips as their new boss, potentially offering him an emotional return to Wearside.

Phillips, now 45, spent six years with Sunderland as a player, scoring a staggering 130 goals in 235 games, winning the Premier League Golden Boot and European Golden Shoe after 30 goals in the 1999-2000 season.

Now a coach, Phillips had a spell with Leicester City before linking up with Gary Rowett at Derby County and Stoke City, but has been out of work since January.

Phillips has recently returned up to Sunderland to watch games, and he has spoken to Roker Report about a move back to the Stadium of Light, but Phillips bluntly shot down the idea of him joining Ross’s staff.

“No, I wouldn’t come up as a first team coach,” said Phillips, who also told a story of how he was approached about a return as manager by Tony Adams.

“When Simon Grayson got the job, I was playing golf in a tournament at the Belfry and I get a phone call from Tony Adams, believe it or not. Tony says; ‘Kev, I’m putting a consortium together to buy the football club.’ He said: ‘listen, if we get it, we would love you to come in and be the manager’. Naturally again, without any thought, I went ‘yeah, I would love to’. He says; ‘we are at the early stages, we’re going to put our bid in next week and once we know what’s happening, we’ll let you know. If we get it, we want you to come in’, I was like ‘yeah, of course, no problems Tony’.

“They put their bid in the next week and I don’t think it was anywhere near what Ellis Short was looking for and it didn’t happen. That’s the closest I have ever come to having any conversation with the club, regarding a return to the football club,” he added.