Nat Phillips

[vlahka]

When Nat and Rhys were in the team, the other players had to play differently to make up for the lack of penetration in their passing and their lack of pace, turning speed and (in Rhys' case) anticipation. That affected for eg Trent and Robbo. None of that is true for Gomez.

Not a good comparison. Klopp would have had them play differently because of having to put 2 defenders in who hadnt played much at all, and certainly not with each other. A little extra defensiveness certainly helped. Try and picture Gomez with Rhys on an extended run. He's never been completely solid. Just because he can turn doesnt mean much. He's garbage in the air, something Nat isnt. Long crosses and corners were handled very well with by him. How often were you worried about conceeding from a corner when Nat was in? I absolutely wasnt. But with Gomez, for all his turning ability, hes pretty static at high balls. He had 1 excellent season. He also had VVD beside him the entire time.

[baitman]

Not a good comparison. Klopp would have had them play differently because of having to put 2 defenders in who hadnt played much at all, and certainly not with each other. A little extra defensiveness certainly helped. Try and picture Gomez with Rhys on an extended run. He's never been completely solid. Just because he can turn doesnt mean much. He's garbage in the air, something Nat isnt. Long crosses and corners were handled very well with by him. How often were you worried about conceeding from a corner when Nat was in? I absolutely wasnt. But with Gomez, for all his turning ability, hes pretty static at high balls. He had 1 excellent season. He also had VVD beside him the entire time.

And when nat and williams first had to shore up our defence and we all worried about our "high line" style, iirc we did struggle for a couple of games but i said klopp needs to consider who he has available and play the DMs a bit less advanced.
Once klopp read my pm things clicked into place quite nicely. Yeh, i should have whatsapp'd...

[Zapater]

Can't believe people are making the comparison. They're the same age, Nat has played less than 50 pro games, a lot of that in those in the second tier in Germany. Gomez is a full international with over 150 appearances. The 'he was only good because he played next to...' doesn't really cut it for me. If he were fit last season during Nat's "breakthrough" - Gomez would've been first choice.

Despite Gomez allegedly being a liability in the air, I can't think of too many incidents where it's cost us, I can think of his recoveries saving us though. Ideally Matip will play next to van Dijk but I have no issue with Gomez or Konate, if Nat was our second or third choice there would be something dramatically wrong.

[vlahka]

Too many peoples oppinions of Gomez are coloured because of our prem win. Before that if you check his thread plenty were happy to sell him. He didnt start looking impressive until VVD came. He's been with us 7 seasons and only that one season did he leave any real impressions. Nats been here far less, played way less, came in during a time when the team was an absolute mess and had to play beside another zero experience player. He tore up the league and CL, earned himself a MOTM award, something gomez never managed in 7 seasons. Its more than telling that Gomez is now 4th choice once we brought in more defenders. And one of those said players is 30. In 7 seasons gomez has only played over 80 PL games for us because of injuries. This will get worse the older he gets. We should be moving him on while hes worth something. Because he certainly wasnt worth much before VVD came.

[Irishnev]

Too many peoples oppinions of Gomez are coloured because of our prem win. Before that if you check his thread plenty were happy to sell him. He didnt start looking impressive until VVD came. He's been with us 7 seasons and only that one season did he leave any real impressions. Nats been here far less, played way less, came in during a time when the team was an absolute mess and had to play beside another zero experience player. He tore up the league and CL, earned himself a MOTM award, something gomez never managed in 7 seasons. Its more than telling that Gomez is now 4th choice once we brought in more defenders. And one of those said players is 30. In 7 seasons gomez has only played over 80 PL games for us because of injuries. This will get worse the older he gets. We should be moving him on while hes worth something. Because he certainly wasnt worth much before VVD came.

I think the year we win the PL Gomez was bordering on world class and easily the best English CB in the league. The injury he got was as bad as you can get - much worse than VVD and we can clearly see he is taking longer to recover. I think Klopp prefers Matip - we say that in the CL winning season but he was always injured - it’s some kind of miracle he’s stay fit this season.

The thing with Gomez is his attributes suit how we want to play, he is lightening fast so not exposed in a high line, he can carry the ball and pass between the lines. There were plenty who said Gomez was our best defender in the 27 game unbeaten run - he was absolutely elite.

I think all of those attributes are not where Nat excels - he is an old style defender who defends his box. See ball - win ball. I’m not trying to bash him because he did excellently for us all considered when we needed him but he isn’t suited to us - we bought Konate who is.

I’m not sure what happens with Gomez - I can’t imagine he is happy with his lack of game time. If Newcastle came and offered 40/50m I’d say we’d sell him because there are some top young CBs out there who suit us and could be moulded. With Nat I don’t see any future with us unless we get another injury crisis

[Exiled_red]

You can say Gomez wasn't any good until VVD came in but he didn't play at CB which is his preferred position until VVD was here. Before that he played fullback where IMO he never looked comfortable. Since moving to CB he has been alot better, is that because of VVD or him actually playing his preferred position, I would say a combination of both, as he has barely played CB without VVD alongside him it is impossible to know for sure. Having a player like VVD alongside you will help any young defender. But for me Gomez has been good since moving to CB in the CL winning season

I don't think you need to be team Gomez or team Phillips, both are very different players. Gomez style of play and his situation as being more experienced put him ahead of Phillips in the pecking order. That's not to say there isn't a role for Phillips, but the reality of his situation is that he needs to play to build a career for himself. At LFC both seem to be behind VVD, Matip and Konate

[wiw]

Can't believe people are making the comparison. They're the same age, Nat has played less than 50 pro games, a lot of that in those in the second tier in Germany. Gomez is a full international with over 150 appearances. The 'he was only good because he played next to...' doesn't really cut it for me. If he were fit last season during Nat's "breakthrough" - Gomez would've been first choice.

Despite Gomez allegedly being a liability in the air, I can't think of too many incidents where it's cost us, I can think of his recoveries saving us though. Ideally Matip will play next to van Dijk but I have no issue with Gomez or Konate, if Nat was our second or third choice there would be something dramatically wrong.

[baitman]

...I don't think you need to be team Gomez or team Phillips, both are very different players. Gomez style of play and his situation as being more experienced put him ahead of Phillips in the pecking order.

There is certainly a case for gomez being a better player that nat but when you factor in the lack of availability of gomez and the much greater potential resale value then i think id be selling gomez and saving nat for when we need a super hero

[Paul12]

Extract from a local paper's rating of Nat's performance in the midweek game: "Overall, Phillips performed the basics of defending and relished the profuse amount of crosses that came his way in the latter stages." Sounds familiar.

[Fuzzy]

3 years ago I won a Fantasy Football tournament that we held with some friends. The winner was to receive a football shirt of a player who had the highest points-per-game rather than total score, because we though that it could lead to a shirt of a lesser known player/club instead of that of a boring superstar.

Seems like my friends had some trouble finding a shirt of that player, so they made me this

[vlahka]

Glorious!

[Deano]

Per the Cardiff forums he's on £60k a week

[BobTheCharmer]

Sell

[Charly]

*bump*ed over Gomez

[SB]

Sorry but what?

Edit : I see now