Nat Phillips has spent his entire senior career as a Liverpool player, but he is of course mostly remembered for the stand-in role he played for the Reds during the 2020-21 season.
Phillips, who joined Liverpool in 2016, made 20 of his 29 career appearances for Liverpool during that campaign, helping the Reds to secure a top-four finish and Champions League qualification for the following season.
Phillips’ chance came about after Virgil van Dijk, Joel Matip and Joe Gomez had all suffered season-ending injuries, and brutally when the squad’s injury situation improved at the beginning of the following campaign, the center-back was forced to take a back seat once more.
Phillips has only made eight appearances for the Reds since that unique 2020-21 campaign, spending time out on loan at Bournemouth, Celtic, Cardiff and Derby in recent years. Phillips has been on loan at Derby since the beginning of this season and has made 25 appearances for the Championship club in all competitions, cementing himself as a first-choice center-back when fit.
The Bolton-born defender, who turned 28 years old this week, will become a free agent at the end of this season, ending a nine-year association with Liverpool.
Phillips’ contribution during the 2020-21 campaign will live long in the memory, and Jurgen Klopp made a conscious effort to praise him after the Reds reached the final of the 2021-22 Champions League — a competition the club might not have been in without Phillips’ contribution 12 months earlier.
“I messaged Rhys Williams and Nat Phillips because we wouldn’t be there without them,” Klopp said ahead of the final. “I remember the final game of last season and they left the pitch with a bandage around the head, cuts on their faces, and that was really a symbol for the whole period. We went through on one leg, with one eye… it was incredible. It was such a tough season.
“We had no centre-halves, had to play midfielders in the last line, then had to use other players in midfield and nothing worked really. In the end, we played with two incredible players – Rhys and Nat – but we couldn’t use them earlier because they needed time to adapt. So, yes, there was a bit of a point to prove and I’m really happy that the boys did that.”
