Liverpool have turned down a bid from Turkish club Trabzonspor for defender Nat Phillips.
Liverpool have turned down a bid from Turkish club Trabzonspor for defender Nat Phillips.
If Trabzonspor is serious about acquiring him, they will need to make him their most expensive signing to date. Reports from Sunday indicated that there was a “concrete possibility” of Phillips moving to Turkey, with Trabzonspor engaging in talks with Liverpool. The Turkish club offered £4 million, but Liverpool rejected this bid, as reported by the Athletic’s James Pearce and journalist David Lynch.
Liverpool has set Phillips’s valuation at £8 million, showing no intention of selling for half that amount. While the club is not in a hurry to offload the 27-year-old, Phillips himself is eager for regular playing time after spending much of his time at Anfield on loan or on the bench.
If Trabzonspor meets Liverpool’s asking price, it would surpass their current record transfer fee of £5.8 million (€6.9 million), set when they signed Majeed Waris in 2014.
Phillips, currently in pre-season training at the AXA Training Centre, has also drawn interest from other clubs, including Cardiff, Ipswich, and Mainz. Burnley has shown interest as well, with their new manager Scott Parker familiar with Phillips from his loan spell at Bournemouth in the latter half of the 2021/22 season.
With 29 senior appearances for Liverpool, Phillips is considering his options but remains a valuable asset for manager Arne Slot during pre-season. The absence of Ibrahima Konate, Virgil van Dijk, and Joe Gomez, who are still competing at the Euros, leaves Jarell Quansah as the only other centre-back from last season currently in training.
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