Thursday 28 November 2019 14:45, UK
Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson has warned Liverpool youngster Rhian Brewster he would not be guaranteed game time if he were to join on loan in January.
The 19-year-old forward's only two senior appearances this season have come in the Carabao Cup, while he has only made the bench for one Premier League fixture.
Speculation has grown Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp will consider allowing Brewster to go out on loan once the transfer window opens at the start of January, but only if there's a guarantee of minutes for the England youth international.
"He's a good player, there's no doubt about that," Hodgson said. "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 per cent certain I could guarantee him that he would be the first name on the team sheet.
"So I'm not 100 per certain 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."
Despite Hodgson's warning to Brewster, the former England manager has shown his ability to nurture young talent in the past, notably when Chelsea's Ruben Loftus-Cheek joined on a season-long loan in 2017.
Having previously failed to break into the Chelsea first team, Loftus-Cheek finally made his breakthrough for both club and country after a successful campaign under Hodgson's management.
Palace have dropped to 13th in the Premier League after failing to secure a win during a run of five tough fixtures against the division's top sides, which has highlighted the need for reinforcements in January.
"We are very aware of where there are gaps in our squad that we need to either fill or to make certain we get better cover," Hodgson said.
"I can assure all of our fans that conversations are constantly taking place and that work is constantly going on, but we'll have to wait and see when January comes around what's there and what we can actually buy."
