Nat Phillips has tonight joined Celtic on a season long loan deal from Liverpool.
With a medical completed and paperwork signed off the defender will be able to train with Brendan Rodgers’ squad tomorrow which gives him three days to play his way into the side for Ibrox on Saturday.
News broke this afternoon that Phillips was the man that Celtic wanted to bring in after being hit with an injury crisis in central defence.
On August 13 Cameron Carter-Vickers was injured in the 3-1 win at Aberdeen, on the 18th Stephen Welsh suffered ankle ligament damage in training with Maik Nawrocki suffering a hamstring injury in the League Cup defeat at Kilmarnock two days later.
Rodgers made it clear it clear that he needed an experienced central defender, it wasn’t a position for projects with Celtic 365 understanding that the deal to bring Phillips to Celtic Park has been completed tonight.
Celtic’s fitness and conditioning team will assess Philips tomorrow and decide what programme he needs to follow to get in position to play at Ibrox.
Although he hasn’t played in any of Liverpool’s three EPL matches to date he was fully involved in their pre-season programme.
Last season Phillips only played in five matches for Liverpool with Virgil van Dijk restored to his position in central defence.
During the 21/22 season he went on loan to Bournemouth where he played 17 matches as they gained promotion back to the EPL.
Rodgers put an eight week timescale on the injuries to Carter-Vickers, Welsh and Nawrocki which should see them back available towards the end of October.
With his pedigree Phillips could well cement a place in the Starting XI which would bizarely leave Rodgers spoiled for choice in terms of central defence.
