Started his career at Southampton but was not offered professional terms by the south coast club. Play for non-league Baldock Town as a right-back before moving to striker where his predatory finishing alerted the attention of Graham Taylor, who snapped him up for Watford.

Signed for a mere £325,000 by Peter Reid in 1997, he broke Brian Clough's post-war club scoring record with 35 goals in his first season.

Phillips scored 25 goals in 1998/99 despite missing more than three months of the campaign with a toe injury, a performance which won him a first England cap against Hungary in April 1999.

Failed to impress when he started his second England game against Belgium at the Stadium of Light but his penalty-box sharpness and awareness could provide a prolonged international career.

Was included in Kevin Keegan's England squad for Euro 2000 but failed to get onto the pitch ahead of the likes Alan Shearer and Michael Owen.

After a dip in form in the early part of the 2000/01 season he rediscovered it with a hat-trick over Ipswich Town in the festive programme and in time to ensure selection when England boss Sven Goran Eriksson announced his first squad.

By the end of the 2000/01 season he had scored less than half the total of Premiership goals he got in the previous campaign.

His form continued to dip in the 2001/02 campaign - probably an indication of why the team struggled so badly.

Failed to make Sven Goran Eriksson's squad for the 2002 World Cup, and what Phillips seemingly needs is either a striker partner more mobile than Niall Quinn - or a move to a bigger club - to realise his international ambitions.