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Brewster's Millions..

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Oh great. Now the story has changed and it was Brewster all along who wanted to leave! Genius. It'll be his cat pining for pikelets next. I guess Klopp would 'happily' keep all the others he's under orders to bomb out the door. And still people suck it up like simpletons.
 
No rush, @Hass. Appreciate it as always. ;)
I know you do mate. They've been posting some other non lfc articles which have been pretty interesting too. Should we have a sticky for those ones too you reckon? I've sorted my £1 renewal so good for another year
 
@King Binny
Your wait is over.;)

By James Pearce Oct 2, 2020
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Barely 24 hours after Jurgen Klopp had been unveiled as Liverpool’s new manager, he was standing on the balcony of their academy building in Kirkby, sipping a coffee and watching the action unfold below him.
It was October 10, 2015 and the German coach was there to meet staff and take in the under-18s’ Saturday morning showdown with their Stoke City counterparts.
“When I’m managing a club, each young player should smile, because the chance is bigger than it ever was,” Klopp declared. “The door is pretty wide open. Experience is an important point but not the most.”
One striker, just 15 but with pace to burn, caught his eye with a lively 10-minute debut as a late substitute. Academy staff had been so keen for Klopp to see Rhian Brewster in action he had been put on the bench for the under-18s after playing 50 minutes on the back pitch for the under-16s the same morning.
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Brewster playing for Liverpool Under-18s at age 15 on Klopp’s first visit to the academy (Photo: Nick Taylor/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
It did the trick. Klopp was soon on board with the belief among the academy coaches that Liverpool had one of the most exciting English players of his generation on their hands. Brewster was a star in the making and his reputation continued to grow.
Yet five years on from that memorable cameo, Brewster has now been sold without ever scoring a competitive senior goal for Liverpool or making a single Premier League appearance.
Having initially only considered a second loan move in as many seasons earlier this summer, Liverpool ultimately agreed to sanction a permanent transfer this week after Sheffield United agreed to pay their club-record fee of £23.5 million for him. Around £18 million of that figure is understood to be guaranteed, with the rest reliant in performance-related add-ons.
It’s a decision that is bound to divide opinion among Liverpool fans, considering the buzz around Brewster and the fact his goalscoring exploits in pre-season for Klopp’s side following a prolific loan spell at Swansea City in the second half of last season suggested he was ready to make the step up at Anfield.
However, there are several reasons why all parties decided that this was the best possible outcome.
For a start, it’s an eye-watering sum of money in the current climate for a 20-year-old who is still unproven at the highest level. It effectively covers the club’s purchase of two-time Champions League winner Thiago Alcantara from Bayern Munich.
East London-born Brewster had been signed from Chelsea for a compensation fee of just £250,000 in 2015. Then-Liverpool Under-21s boss Michael Beale, who had coached him at the Stamford Bridge club, was crucial in helping to convince the family a move north was in his best interests.
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Brewster scores in a 2017 FA Youth Cup game against Manchester City (Photo: Nick Taylor/Liverpool FC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
Key to Sheffield United getting the deal done this week was them agreeing to both a 15 per cent sell-on clause and the inclusion of a buy-back option, which Liverpool can trigger over the next three years if they want to re-sign him and the player is keen on returning. What it would cost them to re-sign Brewster hasn’t been revealed but senior sources at Liverpool insist it’s a figure they regard as realistic if he fulfils his potential at Bramall Lane.
Liverpool inserted similar buy-back clauses when they sold Jordon Ibe and Brad Smith to Bournemouth in deals worth a combined £21 million in the summer of 2016, but neither was ever acted upon.
This isn’t a tale of Brewster being shoved out of the door against his will to balance the books amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The player and his representative, Leon Anderson, have been pushing for this.
Having had a taste of senior football when he scored 11 goals in 22 games to help Swansea make the Championship play-offs after arriving in January, he was desperate to play regularly again this season.
Brewster also held talks with Crystal Palace over a possible return to London but was enthused about moving to Sheffield United after a passionate pitch from their manager Chris Wilder, who has long since admired him. He didn’t fancy sticking around at Liverpool as a bench-warming squad player and, given the array of attacking options at Klopp’s disposal, he couldn’t see the situation changing much over the next 12 months if he just went out on loan again.
Roberto Firmino is firmly established as Liverpool’s first-choice No 9 and Takumi Minamino is the back-up for that central role after making rapid strides in recent months following his January arrival. The £45 million signing of Wolves’ Diogo Jota, who can play across the frontline, two weeks ago made the challenge facing Brewster even greater.
Klopp described Brewster as “a natural goalscorer” after he netted three times in two warm-up games against Stuttgart and Salzburg in August but it was telling that the manager also spoke about how the England Under-21 international “has to be more involved in games”.
There’s a good reason why Firmino is referred to by Klopp as Liverpool’s “engine”. The Brazil international sets the tone with his pressing and intelligently drops off into pockets of space to link play. Those are the areas of Brewster’s game which Klopp felt still needed work.
He would have happily kept him around to iron out those rough edges on the training fields at Melwood but Brewster was in a hurry. Hanging onto a player against his will never sits right with the German, who prides himself on having a squad completely committed to the cause.
“I need a player in the right place in the right moment who is ready to fight,” Klopp told reporters on Friday. “All the boys need to know that we don’t keep them here at all costs just so we have a selection for one or two games a year. If I’m selfish, it never helps really. With a boy like Rhian, I am 100 per cent concerned about his development. He’s our boy. Sometimes we are the right place to make these steps, sometimes we’re not, and we have to admit that.”
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Klopp expected big things from Brewster but he lost 14 months to a major injury (Photo: Nick Taylor/Liverpool FC/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
Brewster left Chelsea for Liverpool because he felt there wasn’t a pathway through to the first team for him there. Similarly, he came close to walking away from Anfield two years ago after initially rejecting the club’s offer of a first professional contract due to concerns about a lack of opportunities.
He considered following in the footsteps of his former England youth team-mate and friend Jadon Sancho with a move to the Bundesliga. Borussia Monchengladbach’s advances infuriated Liverpool to such an extent that they threatened them with a tapping-up charge and cancelled a pre-season friendly against them. Ultimately, Klopp managed to convince him to stay put and he signed a five-year contract in July 2018.
“When I spoke to the manager, he said, ‘You are going to be a top striker at this club. Not next season, but the season after you will be in my plans’,” Brewster revealed at the time.
It wasn’t an empty promise from Klopp.
Strikers Danny Ings, Dominic Solanke and Daniel Sturridge all left the club during 2019. The issue was that it took Brewster much longer than expected to recover from a serious injury which had derailed his thrilling progress.
He had left a lasting impression on the club’s senior professionals when he scored a hat-trick in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Accrington Stanley at Melwood at the age of 16 in 2016. The following year, he announced himself to a much larger audience when he fired England Under-17s to World Cup final glory in India. Brewster’s eight-goal haul earned him the tournament’s golden boot.
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Brewster, with Phil Foden, was top scorer at the Under-17 World Cup for winners England (Photo: Jan Kruger – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
However, the following January he truly came back down to earth with a bump when he landed awkwardly playing in an under-23s game against Manchester City and needed surgery on both a knee and an ankle. It was 14 months before he played again.
In the absence of Firmino and Mohamed Salah through injury, Brewster was named on the bench for the Champions League semi-final second leg against Barcelona at Anfield in May of last year, with Klopp vowing: “Next season he will be playing, 100 per cent, and he knows that. I have told him already.”
However, Brewster didn’t kick on as expected in the opening months of last season. His only three Liverpool first-team appearances all season came in much-changed line-ups in the domestic cups and at times he dropped back down to the under-23s. In January, the decision was taken to loan him out to Swansea.
His final act for Liverpool proved to be missing the decisive spot-kick after being brought on for the penalty shootout in August’s Community Shield against Arsenal at Wembley.
Leaving Liverpool is a big deal for Brewster, especially as his dad Ian is a lifelong fan who grew up adoring 1980s superstar John Barnes. But he’s an ambitious and driven young man, and at Sheffield United he will get the chance he craves to grace the Premier League and lead the line.
The parting of the ways is amicable. Brewster was a popular figure at Melwood and Klopp was also sympathetic to his situation in the knowledge that he wants to make up for lost time after losing over a year to injury.
The pathway is still there for youngsters at Liverpool. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Curtis Jones are proof of that. But the bar is set incredibly high. Brewster couldn’t quite clear it, but there’s no disgrace in that given the elite attacking personnel he was competing against.
Klopp will watch his development under Wilder at Bramall Lane with interest. That buy-back clause certainly reduces the degree of risk attached to waving goodbye to such a prodigious talent so young.
 
Thanks for sharing, @Hass & @the count :D

I know you do mate. They've been posting some other non lfc articles which have been pretty interesting too. Should we have a sticky for those ones too you reckon? I've sorted my £1 renewal so good for another year

@Hass, if it's not too much of a hassle, I would love reading them (non-LFC) too. (Cost abt £35 per year over here)
 
[article]Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp admits it was a difficult decision to sell Rhian Brewster.

The striker joined Sheffield United on a permanent transfer this summer after struggling for game time with the Reds.

He impressed during a loan spell at Swansea City in the second half of last season.

Klopp spoke about the reasons for the club deciding to cash in on the 20-year-old.

"There is one change to Sheffield United that certainly makes them more dangerous. And that is the arrival of Rhian Brewster," Klopp wrote in the matchday programme.

"Our guy, our man - this will always be the case in our hearts.
But now on the pitch he is Sheffield United. And anyone who knows Rhian will be aware that sentiment will be firmly left outside of Anfield when he arrives today.

"It would not be possible for me to understate my love, respect and admiration for Rhi.

"Such a special guy on and off the pitch. I'm not going to lie, agreeing to that transfer was really hard.

"He is a natural-born goalscorer. It's in his DNA. He is a coach's dream as he is so eager to learn but also a beacon of positive energy.

"He had some really hard moments with us, but throughout he never once lost belief and he was always someone who would light up a room, even when he experienced really tough times.

"We miss him but we are delighted that he has found a fantastic home at Sheffield United.

"Hopefully he has an off-night this evening and then when we travel to Sheffield. But for the other games we all support him and wish him success."[/article]
 
Not sure how ready he is for the Prem, think he'll struggle with the lack of creativity in the Sheffield side.
 
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