Young Liverpool forward Rhian Brewster is subject to interest from Premier League club Crystal Palace, but the Londoners will have to fend off Aston Villa, Leeds United and Swansea City.
That’s according to the Mirror – who claim that all four clubs are interesting in adding the England youth star to their ranks on a temporary basis.
The report suggests that Brewster could be on the move as early as January, but isn’t clear on whether Jurgen Klopp is interested in shipping him out or not.
With the Reds opting against strengthening in a big way over the summer, and effectively losing Daniel Sturridge, I’m not sold on the idea that the boss will happily move Brewster on.
An injury to Bobby Firmino or Divock Origi, and Liverpool are in an unenviable position. That is – if we don’t sign anyone in the summer.
And some fresh quotes from Palace boss Roy Hodgson only doubles down on my fears. “He’s a good player, there’s no doubt about that,” he told Sky Sports. “The only thing that would concern me there is that I don’t know quite how many guaranteed games [he would get].
“If I was going to speak to Jurgen and he was going to talk to me about, ‘I want Rhian Brewster to go out on loan and play some matches.’ I’m not 100% certain I could guarantee him that he would be the first name on the team sheet.
“So I’m not 100% that that will do anything other than be useful for us in terms of having another player who could come in from time to time and certainly help us out.
“But if I was Jurgen Klopp and Rhian Brewster, I think I’d want to be going somewhere where I was the first name on the team sheet, and I could guarantee that between January and May I’d be playing 20 matches.”
I mean, it’s good that Roy is so open about this, but I think Klopp would have to be mad to allow Brewster to join Palace now.
The youngster could do the job Hodgson is describing for us – there would literally be no point in the loan, from a selfish standpoint.