Huddersfield Town transfer news: Terriers decide they can no longer hold back youngster
Kieran Phillips has joined Ross County after Huddersfield Town decided they could no longer hold him back from first-team football.
The 24-year-old forward has joined Scottish Premiership side Ross County, giving him a chance to kick-start his career and putting an undisclosed fee into the Terriers' kitty as they look to add to their attacking ranks this month.
Since returning from a spell at Everton in 2020, Huddersfield-born Phillips has been part of the League One club's B-team set-up.
But now the club are restarting the academy Phillips started in, they need to thin out the B-team ranks and having had a taste of senior football with chairman Kevin Nagle's other club, they felt it was time to cut the apron strings.
“Having benefitted from his time playing regularly with Sacramento Republic, it was clear to us that Kieran was no longer suited to our B-team programme and his future would be best suited elsewhere with first-team opportunities at the club to be limited," explained Town's sporting director Mark Cartwright.
“A capable forward with lots to like about his game, this is the right time in Kieran’s career to find a permanent home for himself at first team level with his 25th birthday fast approaching, and he departs with the sincere best wishes of all at the club.”
Phillips scored 15 goals and had three assists in 31 appearances on loan at Sacramento in the American season, but it says plenty about the standard of the USL Championship that it did not qualify him for a crack at solving the Terriers' problems up front in England's third tier, at least in their eyes. Instead he heads to Scotland's top division.
Phillips, who made 11 senior appearance for the Terriers – all in 2020-21 – but only one start, against Plymouth Argyle in the FA Cup has previously been on loan with Walsall, Exeter City, Morecambe and Shrewsbury Town, where he scored a combined 14 goals.