Nat Phillips list of suitors continues to grow, with West Ham the latest to have “registered their interest” in the centre-back.
Enough interests guys…now do something interesting.
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Who are the 8 homegrown players for us this coming season ? 8 out of 25
Kelleher , TAA , Gomez , Phillips , Hendo , Milner , AOC , Jones (The first teamers)
I believe that Elliot still comes in as a youth player and not homegrown. If people are still asking for Phillips to be sold , You’re gonna have to still need to buy an English player or declare a U21 player as homegrown. Neco Williams looks set to leave as well and he qualifies as homegrown, There’s Rhys Williams who would be better served at a loan to a championship side.
There is Ben Davies who could be used as a homegrown player , but no one else apart from that. And any “English” player price would be expensive and used against us. Remember how chelski got ripped off for Barkley & Drinkwater.
You don’t have to list them all. Klopp likes to use a smaller squad anyway. And if we still have Rhys Williams, Neco Williams, Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott as legitimate full fledged members of the squad then even if he wanted a 25 man team that’d mean he’d only have to list 21 seniors.
Neco i imagine would be going 8-10m and he’s off , Rhys would be better off going on loan and playing regular football in the championship. That leaves us short on homegrown players. You’d just have 2 U21 players in Jones and Elliott. That’s one reason for Nat Phillips to not leave. If there’s a suitable English player in , then that situation would be different.
Considering PL,CL,FA,League Cups… and then the shortened season leading to the 2022 WC , I do believe Nat will be in the plans. That can change if we get a good price for him and a suitable replacement player who’s an upgrade ( If he’s homegrown , it’s a benefit) , Grujic + Wilson just gave us about 20M , 25M-30M for the pair of Origi/Shaq…
You’d have to say that Liverpool would need to spend towards 80-100M to be competitive for the League/UCL this season. We’ve spent 40M of it on Konate. If we can get 30M on Origi/Shaq and we get a homegrown player , then i’d still not be okay with letting Phillips leave. We need some 60M as it stands now and two positions to fill , and a CF and CM isn’t going to be cheap.
Not to mention the ? marks over VVD’s fitness , The absolute certainities that Matip and Gomez are going to miss some time with injuries , the ? on Konate (He’s had injury problems before and Klopp likes to ease him into the team). A CB with a good injury record as a backup , is of a good age. Find me a replacement who’s better at that than what Nat Phillips does at that or a lesser price
You’re seemingly missing the point that we don’t have to list homegrown players. We have up to 25 senior players we can list. Domestically 8 of them can only be listed by homegrown players and a maximum of 17 none homegrown. Klopp likes a smaller squad he probably wouldn’t list 25 seniors even with 8 Homegrown ones available.
As for Phillips he’s an emergency option that did fantastic for us playing far and above his ability levels but firstly he can now get better for him than that due to his performances last season and secondly him taking up a senior spot seems a bit pointless as Rhys Williams could perform that role just as well (with better technical ability) whilst having lots of potential development and not taking up a senior spot.
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I think only one of Ben and Nat would be sold, Rhys will be sent on loan and Neco wouldn’t be sold.
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Don’t really understand this comment. How can you consistently play way above your “ability levels”? Whatever level you achieve, surely those are your ability levels.
All being well he won’t be first, second, third or maybe even 4th choice but the veiled implication from some is that he is a bit of a donkey and that is unfair. I think he is much better and deserves better than that.
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A lot was done to minimise what he needed to do with our set up and roles those around him played to limit how exposed he was. Someone with his ability shouldn’t have been able to participate in such great team performances and contribute without being exposed. He did Fantastic, played his heart out, fully committed and passionate. Attacking everything. He was a blunt force trauma that Klopp and the team used to perfection during a relatively short period to get us over the line. No way that continues, especially with managers of other clubs having time now to fully study and prepare.
After we brought in Kanoté we have 4 senior CB for two spots, Phillips is HG all the clubs know these things, and jet they are not knocking on the door in great numbers to buy him.
How do you know this? From the talk it actually looks like there is a great deal of interest and his price has skyrocketed to possibly as high as £15m. For a player we were practically giving away free this time last year.
No, not in great numbers and I understand why, the guy is an old fashion CB without speed perhaps a team in the Championship has room for him.
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United love Varane
City love fillips
Everyone else loves Nat Phillips
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Gini could have done with listening to this guy, couldn’t he?
In fact many could. I’m never going to forget him. 
Hasn’t he been linked with 3 or more premier league clubs? Plus a return to Germany
Think it’s us holding on to him. Think Klopp wants to see the fitness levels of Matip, Konate, VVD, and Gomez, before sanctioning his sale.
Yeah I think he will leave at some point, just probably not before January. The additional backup could prove useful.
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VVD, Konate, and probably Gomez as well will be called-up for NT duties during September, October, and November. So an extra body would help.
That does kind of gloss over the biggest advantage of having him around though. When we first brought in Kabak and Davies, we still played Fabinho and Henderson in defence for a couple of months, which suggests to me that there is some element of our defensive play that needs getting eased into, and therefore needs at least one experienced head in there. After those couple of months, Fabinho finally moved back into midfield only after it seems that Phillips got used to it and could be that experienced head.
Therefore, more so than just being an extra body, he’s got the experience and knowledge of our team to play there, even if he is a little limited physically, that is an advantage over anyone else we’d have bar Williams perhaps.
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