diff --git a/drivers/net/phy/phylink.c b/drivers/net/phy/phylink.c
index 9182443082158..b6775f96eec48 100644
--- a/drivers/net/phy/phylink.c
+++ b/drivers/net/phy/phylink.c
@@ -2853,6 +2853,23 @@ int phylink_ethtool_ksettings_get(struct phylink *pl,
 		 */
 		phylink_get_ksettings(&link_state, kset);
 		break;
+
+	default:
+		/* MLO_AN_PHY without a PHY device: the interface is not yet
+		 * fully configured (e.g. waiting for an SFP module to be
+		 * detected and its state machine to run). Return the current
+		 * link_config state so that userspace sees a consistent
+		 * picture and, crucially, does not observe autoneg=false and
+		 * perform a read-modify-write that forces autoneg off before
+		 * the SFP initialisation completes.
+		 */
+		if (!pl->phydev) {
+			phylink_dbg(pl,
+				    "ksettings_get: pre-init state, returning link_config (interface=%s)\n",
+				    phy_modes(pl->link_config.interface));
+			phylink_get_ksettings(&pl->link_config, kset);
+		}
+		break;
 	}
 
 	return 0;