David Moyes confident Kalvin Phillips will find his form sooner rather than later

Phillips has endured a difficult start to his loan spell in east London and was left out of Gareth Southgate’s latest England squad on Thursday.

But Moyes believes he can solve the puzzle and rediscover the player who Pep Guardiola spent £42million on to take to Manchester City 18 months ago.

“I’m speaking to him regularly, he’s such a good boy to talk to as well. He wants to listen, get feedback and wants to get better,” said Hammers boss Moyes.

“There is no doubt he is going to come back to his form. I hope we can crack the code before our time runs out, I really do. That is the key.

“I said to him the other day you don’t get the England manager giving you 31 caps, you don’t get signed by the best manager in the world, there has to be something which everybody has seen.

“We have to crack the code to get him back on it. He has to play, we need to keep building his confidence up, I can see that.

“How do you ever improve? You have to work a bit harder and hope that something someday triggers for you, you get a lift. Score a goal and get a boost, or something.

“He is a good lad and he wants to get better. I don’t really know if that is a good enough answer to the magic code but I can see that someone will get benefit from him because he’s certainly a top player and other people have judged him that way already.”

Phillips is likely to be among the substitutes again on Sunday when West Ham host fellow European hopefuls Aston Villa.