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Why Nat Phillips should be starting for Liverpool - Vinny Perth

Vinny Perth joins Nathan Murphy to explain why Nat Phillips should be starting for Liverpool ahead of Joe Gomez and Joel Matip.



Former League of Ireland manager Vinny Perth believes that Nat Phillips is an obvious solution for some of Liverpool's problems.

Liverpool suffered another embarrassing defeat in the Premier League this weekend.

It's their third trouncing against a supposedly lesser team since the World Cup break. Brentford won 3-1, Brighton won 3-0 and now Wolves beat them 3-0 also. Liverpool are not improving. They're actually getting even worse as the season goes on.

The midfield has been a disaster since the start of the season and won't be fixed until new players are brought in. But there should in theory be enough talent in the middle of the defence to still be effective. Even without Virgil Van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate, Liverpool still have Joel Matip, Joe Gomez and Nat Phillips.

Fabinho and Jordan Henderson have also previously played centre back at different stages.

Matip and Gomez started against Wolves and both looked out of their depth. Perth believes that Philips is the best option for the defence because he's a no-nonsense defender who will show aggression and win balls with his physicality. Something Liverpool are lacking right now.

"Far be it from me to question Klopp, but..." Perth began.

"One I can't get my head around is: A couple of years ago when they struggled to get into the Champions League because of injuries to centre-halves, they went to Nat Phillips and he was outstanding.

"Sometimes some of the solutions, it stares you in the face.

"They've spoken about it. About keeping a clean sheet, about winning games. You've Nat Phillips sitting on the bench with Joe Gomez and Matip being awful on the pitch. And you've got to go back to someone in Nat Phillips who is a natural centre-half.

"He's not easy on the eye. He's not going to dribble out from the back or any of those things. But he's going to defend properly."

Sean Dyche has fixed Everton.

 

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Read more about

Joe Gomez Joel Matip Jurgen Klopp Liverpool Nat Philips Vinny Perth