Darren Bent has urged Liverpool to make a surprise move to sign Manchester City’s Kalvin Phillips this summer.
The Reds have been credited with an interest in signing Phillips, who could leave City after just a year at the club. And according to Bent, the 27-year-old rocking up at Anfield next season would ‘make a lot of sense.’
“It makes a lot of sense because he’s a good player,” the pundit told TalkSPORT. “This is going to sound bonkers, but he’s gone to Man City and it’s like his career has gone backwards.
“He’s gone from playing with England, playing with Leeds, playing every single week well to get him the move to City. But he’s just not played.”
A move for Phillips wouldn’t be universally popular amongst fans, but he’d certainly add something to the squad.
No chance of Phillips ending up at Anfield
In reality, there’s not much chance at all of Liverpool snaring Phillips from his City nightmare. First off, it’s desperately unlikely that the reigning champions would let so much as a canteen lady join the Reds right now.
Although there’s respect between the playing and coaching staff’s of both sides, there’s a deep animosity towards each other behind the scenes.
City have seemingly never quite forgiven Liverpool for poaching some of their recruitment staff a number of years ago. Since then, several incidents have happened to deepen that mistrust further.
So, no matter how dispensable a player is to Pep Guardiola, we don’t think they’d entertain Liverpool’s business. In our opinion, that’s fine. We shouldn’t be interested in bringing in players who’ve failed to make the grade at City.
Unfortunately for Phillips, he well and truly now sits in that company. Having got his £45m transfer from hometown club Leeds United last year, he’s started just two games all season.
Given his quality, that’s quite remarkable. The England man would definitely be of more use at Anfield, but injury issues and an inflated price-tag make this one a non-starter for us.