Apple Watch unpaired but still showing on Watch app - can’t re-pair

This is exactly my point.

• Watch was paired with phone A (iPhone 15 pro max)
• Watch was unpaired due to issues with app via “Erase all content and settings”.
• Watch reset and ready to pair.
• Phone A not recognising pairing circle on watch (the swirly circle you need to scan with the phone)
• Checked watch app on Phone A and watch is still showing as paired although in a constant searching state (can’t connect as watch has reset but can’t delete as needs to be close to watch)
• Tried to pair watch using a different phone to determine what was at fault. Pairs with phone B (iPhone 12 pro max) as normal.
• Phone A still stuck with ghost profile regardless of forced reboot.
• any attempt to remove this ghost profile leads to “connect the watch to the phone” which it simply cannot.

I hope this is enough detail, but thank you for your assistance so far. I do believe it will be a factory reset of the phone currently 😓

The watch has paired successfully to a different phone however the ghost profile is still stuck on the intended phones watch app.

I tried a forced restart to no avail. Any attempt to remove the watch app informs me that the watch needs to be unpaired first (which obviously it already is). I sense a factory reset coming on 😩