Rhian Brewster Wants to Be “the Perfect Player”

Having decided there’s a path to first team football at Liverpool, the striker’s next goal is becoming the best player he can be.

In Rhian Brewster, Liverpool know they have one of England’s best young talents. There has been some uncertainty, though, as to whether they would be able to hold on to the talented 18-year-old, and even the striker himself admits to uncertainty about what comes next.

The issue for Brewster has been the potential for playing time—a clear path to first team football and a desire to avoid spending years cycling through the reserves and heading out on loan. And for a time it had him looking elsewhere. Now, though, his future looks settled.

“At the moment, I just want to be playing regular professional football for the first team,” he said in an interview with Goal. “Whether that was at Liverpool or somewhere else, yeah it was uncertain. Hopefully in 12 months’ time I’ll be sat here saying I made the right decision.”

Borussia Monchengladbach had, for a time at least, appeared the most likely destination for Brewster, who feared there wasn’t a viable path to first team football at Liverpool despite how highly regarded he is amongst Liverpool’s coaching staff and upper management.

Jürgen Klopp, though, has convinced Brewster he’s in his first team plans for the coming season—a further signal no new striker signings should be expected and that likely only one of Dominik Solanke, Danny Ings, Divock Origi, and Daniel Sturridge will remain at the club.

It won’t mean Brewster will be playing every week in the league, but as the presumptive third-choice striker for the coming season he should see minutes in the domestic cups, and if he plays well in those he will have a chance to earn the kind of playing time he’s after.

And while leaving Liverpool at just 18 might seem an odd choice for fans, for Brewster, who watched childhood friend and England youth teammate Jadon Sancho swap Manchester City for Borussia Dortmund for a clearer path to first team football, it was a realistic option.

“You can do it both ways,” Brewster noted. “You can go down the road of staying, waiting for a chance and then taking it, like Trent did, or you can look at it like Jadon did, and think maybe I won’t get my chance here, so I can go somewhere else, abroad maybe.

“I just know what I want in life. I know what I want to achieve. You want to be the perfect player, so you have to always work towards that aim.”

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com