Nat Phillips hungry for more Champions League football after RB Leipzig heroics

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Nat Phillips will one day get round to hanging the shirt from his Champions League debut on his wall at home.

But the Liverpool defender hopes it won't be the last one he's putting up.

Phillips, 23, played a pivotal role in the Reds' win over RB Leipzig last week to book a spot in the European Cup quarter-finals.

It was a game which, after coming through the youth set-up at the club and having two loan spells at Stuttgart, it finally felt like the moment he belonged in this Liverpool team.

The fact he wasn't even included in Jurgen Klopp's Champions League squad at the start of the campaign shows how through his own hard work and circumstance he has now been given a chance.

Phillips is expected to keep his place alongside Ozan Kabak to form a partnership to finish a season that has been wrecked by injuries to first-choice centre-backs.

“It was a massive night for me and my family,” said the defender, who is the son of former Bolton defender Jimmy.

“I never thought at the end of last year and the start of this year that I would be playing Champions League football.

“This year obviously spectacular circumstances have dictated that with the injury crisis that we have got, but nevertheless it was still a special night for me.

“I have kept the shirts that I wore and when we are allowed to go out and about again I will be getting them framed like I did with my promotion one [Stuttgart] and debut for Liverpool.

“I will stick them in a frame I think.”

But he will be sad if that game ends up being the pinnacle of his Liverpool career.

“I would say it is important to me that it does not become the biggest occasion or best game that I have ever played in,” said Phillips, who moved to Liverpool in 2016 after leaving Bolton.

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“It would be sad if I go on with the rest of my career and it is already peaked.

“That would be a shame.”

Phillips appeared to be always in the right place at the right time on Wednesday as he made interception after interception, many with his head which was wrapped in a bandage.

“I split it open against Fulham, right at the end of the game,” he said.

“I got it glued together and it wasn’t too bad. But there were big lumps of glue, right over the cut.

“We were doing set pieces on the morning of the game and I didn’t have the headband on.

“Literally, the first thing I did in training was get my head on it, right where the cut and all the glue was!

“I just said to the physios: 'Can we get something on there and strap it up?'”

Phillips' performance last week and Liverpool's injury crisis which has left Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip all out for the rest of the season has given him a chance to fight for a future at the club.

“Circumstances have dictated it but I still have plenty more to do to earn that right. In terms of me and my ambitions, they are always changing,” he said.

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“If you had asked me at the start of the season if I thought I was capable of playing in the Premier League, I would have said: “yeah” but whether it was for Liverpool, I wasn’t sure.

“But I wouldn’t say at a club like Liverpool that you can ever rest on your laurels and think, ‘I am safe now.’ It doesn’t work like that”

Klopp is expected to keep Fabinho in midfield tonight against Wolves so Phillips should retain his place in defence.

Having been loaned out for two spells at Stuttgart last season, it looked like his future may lie away from the Premier League champions who had also won the European Cup the previous year.

Now his ambition is to one day be part of a trophy-winning side. Whether that is at Liverpool or not remains to be seen.

“When they officially won the league I was still in Germany,” added Phillips.

“I drove into the (Stuttgart) training ground blasting ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ from the car.

“Both of those moments [Premier League and Champions League] were inspirational and motivational.

“Because I saw how much it meant to those guys, I was jealous they got to experience that moment.

“It made me think I want to feel something like that one day, and achieve something like that myself.”

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• Liverpool FC
• Champions League

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