Kenny Dalglish’s roundabout verdict on loan bhoy

Kenny Dalglish reckons that Nat Phillips is not bad.

With his Glasgow background that is a roundabout compliment but it could be that his loan deal is rapidly running down.

Celtic turned to Phillips as they stared at an incredible run of injuries that looked like ruling out Cameron Carter-Vickers, Maik Nawrocki and Stephen Welsh for two months.

Just in the door Gus Lagerbielke was the last central defender standing before the unexpected blooming of Liam Scales.

Brendan Rodgers admitted that the former Shamrock Rovers defender has taken him by surprise with the 25-year-old on a run of starting Celtic’s last eight matches.

With Carter-Vickers featuring in the last two games it looks like the need for Phillips may have passed but looking at the on loan Liverpool defender Dalglish told the Daily Record:

They had a couple of problems. It is not unusual to get injuries in the same position, it just seems to happen to everybody. But the young boy Liam Scales has come in and he’s done well, Cameron Carter-Vickers is back and Phillips has come from Liverpool on loan. By the way, he’s not bad. He is alright.

The difficult thing with that will be that Celtic have 80 per cent possession in most of the games. He wouldn’t get that at Liverpool. As much as Liverpool can dominate a game, not by 80 per cent too often. But he’s a good defender and a threat in the air at set-pieces as well.

Lagerbielke never made the bench for Saturday’s win over Kilmarnock but with Nawrocki and Welsh getting close to resuming full training Rodgers could soon be very well covered in that area of the park.

With Hearts, Atletico Madrid and Hibs coming up in the space of seven days Phillips could well be required but after the November international break Rodgers could have five signed up defenders battling over two starting places.