Former Liverpool player Charlie Adam has praised defender Nat Phillips for his performance against Burnley.
Liverpool’s 3-0 win at Turf Moor means that their Champions League qualification hopes are pretty much in their own hands, as they head into the final day of the season level on points with Leicester City and with a +4 goal difference advantage.
24-year-old defender Phillips played a major role in securing the vital three points for Liverpool, scoring a goal, winning 9 aerial duels, 3 tackles and making 9 clearances, one of which was off the line, earning a 9.5/10 rating on WhoScored in the process.
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No wonder, then, that Adam, speaking on the BBC 5 Live Football Daily podcast after the game, was full of praise for his performance:
“I think he’s stood up to the challenge. I think if any goal goes in against Nat Philips then it’s all, ‘we need a centre-back, he’s not good enough’ and that’s just how people might have been thinking about him.
“But to be fair, I think he’s been excellent and again tonight, I thought he was dominant. He had a couple of ropey bits in the first half where he tried to play out, but he is playing with confidence.”
TIF Thoughts on Charlie Adam’s comments about Nat Phillips…
This isn’t just a one-off performance, as Phillips has put in a string of impressive performances in recent weeks and could end up giving Jürgen Klopp a headache heading into next season.
He has recently admitted that the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip might not be back in time for the start of next season, but they are going to come back eventually and Klopp will inevitably be faced with a rather difficult decision about who plays when they are all fit and healthy.
All that Phillips can do at this point is keep up his displays and hope that it’s enough to convince the German to make him a more prominent member of the team – the rest is out of his hands.
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