Jordan Henderson has been a regular presence at Liverpool for the past 11 years – but things could have been very different had the midfielder taken a different decision.
Henderson has made 463 appearances for Liverpool since joining the club in a £20million transfer from Sunderland back in June 2011. That number puts him in 21st place on the club’s all-time list of appearances and, with his current contract not due to expire until June 2025, he has plenty of time left to climb the list further.
The 32-year-old has been captain since July 2015, when Steven Gerrard left the club and is now in his 12th season as a Liverpool player. It’s been a hugely successful period for the club under Jurgen Klopp, but there have been a few signs of problems recently. Paul Scholes has even suggested there’s “something not quite right” between captain and manager after he was left on the bench for the recent defeat by Nottingham Forest.
Henderson’s career could easily have panned out completely differently, had he taken Brendan Rodgers’ offer to leave the club before the start of the 2012/13 season. With Joe Allen signed by Rodgers and Gerrard and Lucas Leiva ahead of him in the pecking order, Henderson was informed that the club were open to selling him.
"I can remember it like it was yesterday," Henderson told Rio Ferdinand on BT Sport earlier this year. "It was just before we played Hearts at Anfield, and we had a game on the night. I had a conversation with Brendan at the hotel the day of the game – and to be fair to Brendan he sort of gave me the option. It was more the club that was willing to let me go.
"Brendan said ‘listen, it’s down to you, you’re not going to be starting as much as what you’d have liked but I’ll try to help you improve on what I need you to improve on. You’re still young, and if you do that then maybe you get more game time as time goes on’.
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"So basically I went back to my room, cried a little bit and was devastated really, but from that moment on I just tried to… It wasn’t really an option for me to leave, because I hadn’t been at the club very long, and I’d worked extremely hard to get there."
Luckily for Liverpool, Henderson was not ready to leave, so instead chose to stay and fight for his place in the side. "I said straight away ‘listen, I ain’t going anywhere, I’ll do everything I can to get in your team and I’ll prove people wrong’," he explained.
"From that moment, every day in the gym I’d give everything, every day on the training pitch I’d give everything. Just focus on myself, how I can improve, how I can be better. Brendan helped us a lot tactically [and] I really think back then I could improve a lot tactically - I was good at box-to-box, I was very physical and decent technically, but the tactical elements I wasn’t really taught that much, especially of what Brendan wanted.
"He brought me into his office, sat me down, showed… where he wanted us with and without the ball. I felt that helped massively, helped me understand football even more, and from that moment on I just grew in confidence as time went on."
