Nathaniel Phillips has told Sky Sports he is ready to leave Liverpool this winter in pursuit of regular first-team football.
Following the season-ending injuries to Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip last year and the subsequent experiments in centre-back positions by manager Jurgen Klopp, involving midfielders Fabinho and Jordan Henderson filling in, manager Jurgen Klopp was forced to turn to Phillips, alongside academy graduate Rhys Williams, towards the end of 2020-21. The pairing of effectively sixth- and seventh-choice centre-backs did the job surprisingly well, playing a huge role in Liverpool’s late resurgence and eventual Champions League qualification. Phillips particularly earned a place in the hearts of supporters with brave, hard-working, no-nonsense defensive performances.
However, with Van Dijk, Matip and Gomez all back in contention, as well as Ibrahima Konate arriving from RB Leipzig during the summer, Phillips is back to being low in the pecking order for the starting positions, and at the age of 25, it’s quite obvious he has no time to waste being regularly left out of matchday involvement.
Phillips has the quality required to start at another Premier League club, and that’s obviously what he’s hoping for.
“The manager and I agree that the best thing for me is to play as many games as possible. I think you saw last year I developed well,” he said.
“I’m going to see what comes along [in January] and go from there. I think at this moment in time it’s unlikely that I’ll be playing lots of games for Liverpool, so if an opportunity arises where I get the chance to do that somewhere else and it suits everyone then it’s certainly something I’d be interested in.
West Ham have been credited with interest in his services.
