Doing the 92 is Daniel Storey’s odyssey to every English football league club in a single season. The best way to follow his journey is by subscribing here
The best news, and the best place to start, is that Rhian Brewster is currently in a good place physically and mentally. For now, he and we must hope, nothing else matters.
On Sunday, Brewster came off the bench for the third time in four Championship matches this season, tasked with protecting a lead by winning fouls and chasing down opponents and did exactly that. When he blocked a pass, and at full-time, he roared to Sheffield United’s supporters and got the same in return. These might have been low-end ambitions once; now they are everything.
In 2018, Brewster seemed to have the world at his teenage feet. At the 2017 Under-17 World Cup he was the tournament’s top goalscorer and third best player, scoring a hat-trick against Brazil in the semi-final. Eight other members of that squad – Phil Foden, Conor Gallagher, Angel Gomes, Marc Guehi, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Jadon Sancho, Emile Smith Rowe and Morgan Gibbs-White – have received senior call-ups and four have played at major tournaments. Brewster was on the same pathway then.
Elite football is littered with those who didn’t quite hit their intended heights for myriad reasons, but for Brewster it is different. The talent has always been there; the health far less so. His is a career that has played out to a backdrop of serious setbacks that left him questioning why me, why now, why again?
In January 2018, during an U23 match for Liverpool against Manchester City, Brewster landed awkwardly, an injury so painful that he required oxygen. He suffered ankle ligament damage and subsequently required a second operation due to damage on his knee from the same incident. He missed 14 months of football.
But Brewster worked back, harder and more determined. When Liverpool sold him to Sheffield United in October 2020, in the midst of bubble football and lockdown life, Jurgen Klopp held nothing back in his assessment:
“It would not be possible for me to overstate my love, respect and admiration for Rhian. He had some really hard moments with us, but throughout he never once lost belief and he was always someone who would light up a room, even when he experienced really tough times.”
The move to Sheffield United didn’t bring the Premier League goals that everyone involved wanted, but Brewster was only 21 when, in 2021-22, he suffered a serious hamstring injury during a 2-0 win over Luton Town in the Championship. Again he needed surgery. This time he missed 29 matches, the rest of that season.
The cruellest blow came in October of that same year.
After getting fit again, and playing in 16 of Sheffield United’s 17 Championship matches to start 2022-23, the same injury occurred in another 2-0 win. Brewster was close to tears, and you get why. He would be forced to miss almost another entire year of football.
“It’s just so tough,” he says, talking to i while sitting in the empty stands at Bramall Lane. “The first hamstring injury happened at a time when I was playing well, but it happens. So you’re thinking ‘Now I want to get back to where I was’, so you have a good mindset. But when it happens again, for a second time. It’s impossible not to just think ‘What is the point?’.
“You’re doing the same things in the gym that you were doing the first time, at the same points. You come in at different times to the rest, because the medical staff and physios need to work on the fit players. At times, I wasn’t even really seeing the players much. You’d come in when they’re at training, and then I’ll be up in the gym.
“You see them but you don’t see them. You can feel like you’re away from them for the most part. But the players were absolutely brilliant with me, though. As soon as they saw me they would ask how I was getting on and how I was doing in myself, making sure I was OK.”
One can only imagine the emotional toil that repeated setback brings; Brewster admits as much.
Supporters have been patient – and he wants to single them out for the manner in which they have stuck with him – but you become a blurry part of the present. You miss out on the good times and are not there to help out in the bad. They are desperate for him to return, but nobody is more desperate than him.
Brewster says that he has been fortunate that Sheffield United, and successive managers, have been so supportive. During the early days of his second extended rehabilitation, they understood the importance of letting him spend time with his family and allowed him to go abroad for warm-weather training, just to get some variation in his life. He was 22, and had been forced to deal with a lot.
It’s touching to see that connection maintained. At the end of Sunday’s 1-0 win over Watford, two children ask for Brewster’s shirt, but he explains that he has to do a large warming-down schedule to recover in the best way. Instead he invites them onto the side of the pitch for separate photographs and autographs. When Brewster posts on social media, supporters respond with love every time.
Even so, a young man has to rely upon those around them and learn to find peace amongst the hardest days whilst simultaneously coping with the mental challenge alone. He says that he visited museums and art galleries in London and Manchester just to clear his head and would take long walks in the country during which he would process what had happened and what might happen.
Company is necessary, but can also be difficult to accept. Those who love you most just want you to be happy, but the only way that you can truly be fulfilled is by being fit again and nobody has a magic wand to make that happen.
“I’ve got a really good support network, but sometimes it did all feel a bit too much for me,” he says.
“I live alone, so when people came to look after me they were constantly asking me if I was OK. It’s lovely to have, but sometimes I need to be alone. My mum came up, and she’s so loving and caring and desperate to make sure that I’m well. I love my mum so much and I’m so grateful to her, but sometimes that makes it harder.
“I don’t mean to be rude to anybody – I want to make that clear – but when it all happened for the second time I was getting so many messages. You have to process it mentally yourself and bring yourself back round to reality and then back round to making things happen in a positive way. It had to be me doing it.”
The irony of all this is that it’s worse for Brewster because he was so highly rated.
Coaches within the Football Association coaching system, the academy game and at Liverpool and Sheffield United are fully aware of the natural talent. But without it, there would have been less pressure and, perhaps, less regret that injuries have hampered the potential progress. The transfer fee, £23.5m in 2020, can also hang around your neck through no fault of your own.
And that’s only multiplied for the player themselves. Brewster knows what he can do, knows how good he can be. He worked tirelessly from the age of seven, through Chelsea and Liverpool’s academy, to make the grade. And then, just on the cusp of his breakout in the men’s game, the worst happened. How could that not sit in the recesses of your brain?
“You just want to be a first-team footballer,” he says.
“You want it to mean the most it can. You’re playing academy football, even at U18 and U23 level, and you’re playing for points but the result isn’t the be all and end all. If you lose in first-team games then you’re fighting relegation, or you’re trying to get points to get promoted.
“It’s a big deal. Your whole life, well, it kind of depends upon making it there. People have families to look after, a wife and kids. People have dreams. You can see how much more it means in that environment.”
Let’s end where we started: Brewster is fit again. That is great news. But one of the hardest issues for those who have walked that same long path is, perhaps counterintuitively, how to mentally process playing competitive football.
One player who had suffered multiple injuries spoke to me about the fear of learning to trust your body again. Elite football is unforgiving and decided by fine margins. Fear is an ingredient only in a failure to be your best.
“When you come back the fear is there, no doubt,” Brewster says.
“The first games when you’re coming back, you have a fear: ‘Please don’t happen again. Please don’t get injured’.
“But once you get through those then you’re OK. The more games you play, the more you can trust that your body is well.”
It’s impossible not to wish Brewster anything but continued health and happiness; the two will surely go hand in hand anyway.
However much or little you know him as a person or a footballer, this is a young man who has been through everything imposed beyond his control. You want to believe in some karmic balance, dues paid over and over, the goals to return. Knee surgery, ankle surgery, hamstring surgery twice; nobody deserves that.
“I hope that I deserve a bit of luck,” he says with a smile. “I’ve had my fair share of bad times. I have done everything to make that luck: training right, eating right, recovering right, sleeping right. I’m going to do whatever I possibly can to not get injured.
“I feel older than 24, trust me. I’ve been through stuff that most 24-year-olds probably wouldn’t go through, and everything is in the public eye. But it is what it is and this is the life that I chose.
“The best feeling in the world is when I’m playing and I’m running, full speed, and I don’t think about it for a second. I’m just running. Trust me, I still have that. Ultimately, that’s all I want and all I’ve ever wanted. Fingers crossed I’ve still got years of that to come.”
Daniel Storey has set himself the goal of visiting all 92 grounds across the Premier League and EFL this season. You can follow his progress via our interactive map and find every article (so far) here
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