Liverpool's Ian Rush 2.0 has flopped big time after leaving in 2020

Liverpool’s Ian Rush 2.0 has flopped big time after leaving in 2020

Liverpool have had something of a golden generation come through their academy over the last few seasons with players such as Trent Alexander-Arnold, Curtis Jones and Conor Bradley arriving through their ranks.

Although the Reds’ academy has always managed to produce Premier League talent, notably Steven Gerrard, it feels as if, thanks to Jurgen Klopp’s focus on developing youth players, the academy’s recent talents have almost been first-team ready from young ages.

For example, this season, the German has handed youngster James McConnell his senior debut for the Reds and even gave him his first start for the club, which came against Norwich in the FA Cup fourth round.

However, this was unfortunately cut short as the defensive midfielder was taken off the pitch in the 79th minute due to an injury he sustained.

Bradley is another academy graduate of Liverpool’s who has had a stellar start to the 2023/24 season thus far.

After winning all three of Bolton’s player awards last season, the Northern Ireland international has managed to carry his purple patch of form with him through to this season.

The right-back has played a total of nine times for the Reds this season and has managed to contribute to a total of six goals during that time. This all comes after the defender has only recently returned from an injury which kept him sidelined for around five months.

Thanks to his recent performances, in the Premier League alone, the youngster is the proud owner of an 8.5 rating on WhoScored, which, when compared to Alexander-Arnold, whose rating sits at 7.18, shows how well Bradley has performed.

The amount of games played between the pair does need to be taken into account, but, his performances for someone who is just 20 years old is remarkable.

However, unfortunately for some players, graduating from the academy isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, with this being the case for former Liverpool starlet, Rhian Brewster.

Rhian Brewster’s rise from the Liverpool academy

Brewster was one of the most talked about prospects within the Reds’ academy. The youngster spent the majority of his youth career at Chelsea between 2008 and 2015. One of his former coaches even claimed it took the West London club all of ten seconds to decide to sign him.

“I remember Rhian’s first match, I asked him to stand in midfield. He was clueless and had no idea what I was asking,” they said via Goal.

“He stood on the edge of the area in this seven-a-side game, looking like he didn’t know what was going on. All of a sudden, the kick-off happened and the ball went to him and I thought, ‘What’s he going to do?’

“And the first thing Rhian did in the first ten seconds was take the ball past every single player, walk it in, pick the ball up and put it on the spot again. Martin came over and stood next to me and asked where he was from. It was at that exact moment, he decided Rhian had to be a Chelsea player.”

However, despite being with Chelsea since 2008, the youngster chose to join Liverpool following his former coach, Michael Beale taking up a role in Merseyside and recommending the youngster to the higher-ups of the club.

Despite being just 15-years-old when he joined the Reds, he quickly made himself at home. Brewster’s U18 debut came just two days after Klopp’s appointment and, even then, the German alluded to him as a “special kid”.

Just two years after arriving in Merseyside, now being just 17-years-old, the striker made his debut for Liverpool’s U23 squad, even managing to score the second goal in a 3-0 win.

Speaking on his performance, then Liverpool U23’s manager, Mike Garrity spoke about the strikers’ involvement in the win against Ipswich.

“I just thought it was the ideal opportunity to throw him in and see what he’s about. We’re delighted that he got his goal,” he said to the Liverpool ECHO. “He did very well. He’s got a lovely personality and is a great character. He’s a wise old owl [for his age].”

Despite only just making his debut for Garrity’s squad, he was already being held in high regard and was made out to be the next “Ian Rush and Robbie Fowler.”

“You can see bits of Rushy [Ian Rush] in him, the way he runs, the way he closes people down. Also, bits of Robbie Fowler in his finishing,” said Jason McAteer to Sky Sports. “If he turns out half as good as those two, I’m sure we’ve got a real player on our hands.”

Receiving this level of plaudit at such a young age undoubtedly added pressure onto the youngster. Despite these comparisons, the striker managed to make his senior debut for the Reds in 2019.

Rhian Brewster’s senior career in numbers

Although his youth career was full of goals, with the striker scoring 22 times in a mixture of competitions, his senior career has left much to be desired.

Brewster managed a total of four Premier League appearances for the Reds during his tenure with the club and failed to score a single goal during that time.

Despite his lack of goal-scoring ability for the Reds, this didn’t stop Swansea from coming in for the striker during the 2020 January transfer window on a loan deal until the end of the season.

By the striker joining the Welsh club, he was reunited with his former England U17’s coach Steve Cooper, where he had his most prolific spell in his youth career.

Brewster scored a total of eight goals in the U17s World Cup winning campaign and left the tournament with the golden boot award.

It also seems as if history repeated itself as, whilst on loan to Swansea, Brewster managed to bag a total of 11 goals with one even coming in the play-offs.

How Brewster has performed after leaving Liverpool

That stellar season with the Swans resulted in South Yorkshire club, Sheffield United, spending around £23.5m in 2020 to acquire his services, which, at the time, broke their transfer record.

Brewster still plays there to this day and has appeared in nine Premier League games for the Blades this season.

However, things haven’t gone quite as you’d expect them to have. Despite making a total of 73 appearances for Sheffield United, the striker has only scored five goals and assisted one during that time.

His last goal came all the way back in 2022 when he managed to slot one past Stoke City on the 10th October. This is a major fall from grace by the attacker, and he hasn’t yet lived up to the hype that was surrounding him in his earlier days.

Granted, the hamstring injuries that the striker has been faced with whilst at the Blades need to be taken into account as they have forced him to miss a total of 75 games for the South Yorkshire club.

However, when fit, Brewster should have been doing better and producing stronger numbers as he is one of the focal points of Chris Wilder’s attack.

The striker is still just 23-years-old, so there is still plenty of time for him to turn his career around, however, he will want to do this sooner rather than later.