Two clubs in the Championships are reportedly set to go head to head in a battle to sign one Liverpool player this week.
According to the Daily Mail, Nat Phillips is expected to depart Anfield on loan yet again before Thursday night’s transfer deadline, with Blackburn and Cardiff both keen on the 26-year-old.
The Reds are understandably eager to send the defender to a club where he’d get regular game-time, having failed to obtain much of a look-in at Celtic earlier this season.
It might seem hard to believe that Phillips will turn 27 in March, so he’s now at a point in his career where he could really do with a sense of stability, rather than hopping between a series of loan moves from one year to the next.
His abortive spell at Celtic, where he made only eight appearances (Transfermarkt), won’t have done much to help his cause either, although that seemingly hasn’t deterred the Championship duo who are hoping to sign him.
Either Blackburn or Cardiff could be getting a very capable defender who Jurgen Klopp previously dubbed an ‘aerial monster’ (The Athletic) and who stepped up commendably during Liverpool’s hour of need amid a defensive injury crisis in 2020/21.
The returns of Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson from injury could see Joe Gomez revert to centre-back, thus increasing competition for places in that part of the Reds’ line-up and shoving Phillips even further down the queue.
Another loan move this week seems inevitable, and hopefully whichever club wins the race for his services will grant him the game-time that he sorely needs at his age. What happens from the summer onwards is a bigger question for another day.