Keith Gillespie has declared that his heart goes out to Rhian Brewster following a difficult campaign with Sheffield United this season.
The promising home-grown youngster, who has spent time developing with both Chelsea and Liverpool, enjoyed a scintillating season with Swansea in the second half of the 2019/20 campaign.
Fast-forward to April 2021 towards the approach of the end of the current season and the Blades look destined for the drop – a prospect not aided through Brewster’s failure to register a single goal or assist in the league this season.
Speaking to Football FanCast, Gillespie said of Brewster: “When you sign for Sheffield United, like he has done, and you look at what they achieved last season, you couldn’t have foreseen the season they have.
“They haven’t scored many goals. He’s a young player who scored quite a few goals at Swansea, and people just expect him to step up and do that at Sheffield United, but he’s ending up going to a struggling side and that becomes a problem.
“He hasn’t played every week, they’ve chopped [and] changed – they’ve got McBurnie there, Sharp, McGoldrick. They have been trying to find that remedy, but you couldn’t tell who are going to be the [two] up top [from] week to week because none of them are scoring goals.”
Brewster has learnt the hard way that the jump from the Championship to the Premier League is a sudden jolt rather than a smooth transition for some.
The young hitman has been consigned to the bench in 2 of every 3 games this season and appears to be in and out of a paramount striking role in starting line-ups.
In a sign he has lost the faith of Sheffield’s tacticians, it seems 21 appearances has been an extended audition for Brewster that has seen him falling short.
It is a far cry from his Swansea days in which his 10 goals helped to catapult the Swans into a play-off spot – a chasm that entirely warrants Gillespie’s sympathies.
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