Yeah I will always hope for the best for any young player here and Brewster was not only talented but he had a great personality - taking the lead at a young age on issues like racism that made him easy to root for.
I just remember that there was a discussion at the time about how he needs to be in the team because he was a deadly goalscorer. I always tried to warn against that viewpoint simply because he always lacked the all round game, he had a serious injury that he never truly recovered from and his goalscoring record - while good - was not some sort of superman record.
Kind of similar to how I see Oakley Cannonier now.
I think we also have to understand the amount kids that fans will say there will be this or thatā¦ and how many actually succeed doing so. Huge difference.
Not all who make the breakthrough here will make it, few will. Not all will remain here for the rest of their or even the majority of their careers. At least at a top successful Liverpool side.
You can be slightly more focused on young players than other big clubs and have a better pathway, it is and actually should still be difficult, it is how it is.
Plus, letās not run away from the fact that how they looked just before they broke through and afterwards, it can vary. A lot. Especially exactly in that period between youth sides and first team football.
Before he really played much there were a lot of arguments as to why he and his potential were the reason we didnāt need to add a new 4th choice attacker. I was arguing for caution about adding too much pressure on Brewster then just like Iām arguing it for Gordon now.
ā¦heās played 242 minutes in 4 appearances lets not get too carried away yet. Be a while before heās even playing as regularly as Jones was a season or so ago.
Pure guess work from my perspective but Mane and Salah are the two who will still command a big fee come this summer, so I can see the logic in cashing in if they have refused a new contract. Iām pretty sure we donāt let all 3 run down their contracts together.
Iām not sure there is much to worry about tbh. I very much doubt the club is either putting all their hopes on all three signing new contracts or planning on letting them all run out, with no plan in place as to which players we buy and when we want to bring them in.
Donāt want Bowen. Unless it is a cheap ish buy, which I donāt think it will be. Apart from contract winding down, Prem teams have money and can protect their assets and force suitors to pay over the odds. At the likely price they would want for Bowen, there will be other players in the mix that Iād rather have.
I know its not likely to ever come down to a straight choice but I think the reasonable wages and fee for Bowen would probably equal/surpass the wages and release clause for Haaland. At which point surely itād be worth paying the agent fees etc. for Haaland than Bowen?
If we have to meet a set criteria on number of English players in our First Team then I can see why Bowen is a target. He has the quality to play back up in the front 3 no doubt.
I canāt imagine the Fee would be any higher than Diaz or Jota, unless he signs a new deal he is only going to become cheaper as his contract runs down.
What gets me about Bowen is that there is generally a positive reaction when weāre linked to shite like Danjuma or Malen and a negative one when linked to a superior player like Bowen. The snobbery is definitely real.
As for Haaland and Bowenā¦even at his most expensive Bowen is going to cost the club 1/3 or 1/4 of what Haaland would. Itās not even in the same ballpark.
For what itās worthā¦ None of those excite me at all, although Bowen looks like a solid player worth a premium, kind of like what Lallana was in a sense.
My personal opinion is that the last 30 posts would probably have been a lot better off in the Who Would You Buy thread, since (a) none of these involve an actual rumour, and (b) a lot of them discuss squad changes, more often than not involving much higher turnover than JĆ¼rgen would want, and on a related note, JĆ¼rgen seems rather happy that weāve now finally got a complete squad. We saw much higher squad turnover when we were building up the team from scratch, but the need is a lot smaller now.
In the Summer Bowen will have 3 years left on his contract, is probably currently on a low wage, is integral to a financially stable West Ham who are challenging for European places, heās āhomegrownā for squad rules, English for fans/managers/clubs that care about that and hes only just turned 25. He cost West Ham Ā£20m from the Championship 2 years ago.
Iāve never been able to understand why people think heāll be cheap.
Heās not going to be cheap, but heās not going to be 90M pounds either. Before wages, Haaland will cost an upfront investment of 90M pounds. I am not going to have an amortization battle with you here today, but saying Bowen is likely going to cost the same outlay has Haaland is comical.
The fact that West Ham is trying to tie him down to a new contract before the summer also likely hints at thereās a clause in there somewhere that might be activating this summer or else it wouldnāt really matter would it?
Well, no because youāre setting a benchmark for bringing in a new lad and immediately making him your highest paid player. Thatās Utd level shit weāre well clear of.
