I'm trying my best to understand the logic... I think from the manager's standpoint, thinking purely about team selection, Brewster and Origi at this point represent the same type of player – a forward whose primary strength is as a finisher, but with question marks about their overall game and perhaps a better fit for a simpler 4-2-3-1 than Klopp's insanely complex and fluid 4-3-3 shape. The difference between them, of course, is that Origi is pretty much a finished article (although I think he is capable of being better than what he showed last season given a consistent run of starts somewhere), whereas Brewster still has plenty of time to work on his weak points. But going back to the team selection perspective, perhaps for Klopp there is only 1 spot in the squad for this type of a player, so one of Brewster or Origi simply has to leave.
We would have happily sold Origi to Villa for the reported asking price of £25M; unfortunately for us they had 2-3 other strikers ahead of him in the list and in the end decided to sign Watkins for a few million quid more. At this point, with the pandemic taking a lot of non-English clubs out of the market, it doesn't seem like Origi is going to be sold for the price we think a player of his quality and status is worth, so it affects Brewster's chances of getting into the team (through no fault of his own) and he's naturally a more sellable asset due to the English premium. Perhaps another aspect of this is the contract situation – in recent years the Academy developed a number of good young players who have started coming into their prime just as their contract with us expired and other clubs snapped them up. Our loss was Milan's gain with Suso, Lazio's with Luis Alberto etc, Nantes' with Chirivella etc. Given how aggressively Brewster pushed for a move to Dortmund, perhaps the club's decision-makers became convinced that the same is likely to happen with Brewster in 2023 and came up with an idea of how to avoid it – selling with a buy-out clause, which if triggered (and if Brewster agrees to come back to LFC) would mean another long-term deal for Rhian, which would ensure that his best years are spent with us.
It's a roundabout way of doing it and perhaps more expensive in the long run, but it also transfers the risk of him not making the best of his potential to the buying club, which could be worth the extra expense. Does this make any sense to any of you or am I talking absolute bollocks here (which is very possible, since I know fuck all about contracts and finances)?
