I understand the point that Murphy was trying to make.
City are Champions with a fabulous team, and they are in a position that they can add a player such as Phillips to their squad, because they don't particularly need to revamp their first XI, although they have, by bringing in Haaland.
United on the other hand, are miles away from where City are, 30 odd points adrift, so in order to close that massive gap, bringing in squad players isn't going to have much of an impact, it's United's first XI that needs urgent improvement.
Eriksen probably isn't the player to do that, unless Bruno is being dropped, but that seems unlikely, so Murphy is probably correctly calling Eriksen a squad player.
I'm happy to sign Eriksen, he is class, but I'm not under any delusions that he will bring United significantly closer to City or Liverpool, which I think is the point that Murphy was trying to get across.