Klopp explains why Liverpool have brought Nat Phillips in

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Liverpool have recalled Nat Phillips from his Stuttgart loan spell and the centre-back will be available from the Everton game onwards.

With Dejan Lovren and Joel Matip injured, Jurgen Klopp only has two fit senior centre-backs to choose from in Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez.

While those two have been phenomenal recently, an injury to either would cause a big problem, considering the likely ‘5th choice’ central defender Fabinho is also crocked…

According to Klopp, Phillips has thrived Germany and his return is a ‘nice story’.

“He’s our boy, he’s on loan at Stuttgart and is doing really well there,” Klopp told Liverpoolfc.com.

“For people who don’t know, Stuttgart pretty much should be, together with Hamburg, the best team in the second division. They are third in the moment, they want to get promoted obviously, and they unfortunately sacked the manager because they are not happy with third place so you see how ambitious they are. 

“They are a football-playing side and Nat is doing there really, really well. He played, I think, 11 games. 

“Now we have the situation that we have and we thought ‘what can we do to help us a little bit?’ and we asked Stuttgart if they would be ready to give him back to us for a while and they said ‘OK’. 

“I don’t think we asked Nat, actually, but he looked really happy yesterday [Friday] when he was in the dressing room so it’s just a nice story that we can do something like this. I hope that from Everton he will be available.”

The fact he’s been recalled suggests to us that Klopp will be ringing the changes for the Everton game in the FA Cup, which we’re very much in support of.

Despite our big lead in the Premier League, it’s imperative we keep our first-team fresh for a very difficult January, which includes an away trip to Spurs and the visit of Manchester United to Anfield.

Some will argue that with the lead we have domestically, we can have a real go at the FA Cup, but we’re not sure the boss will agree.

On January 5th, we reckon we’ll see a rotated XI, with the likes of Adrian, Xherdan Shaqiri, Divock Origi, Rhian Brewster and the returning Phillips playing.

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