Jordan Henderson has praised the role that Brendan Rodgers played in his development into the Liverpool captain.
The midfielder was close to leaving the club in 2012 after just a single season at Anfield.
A deal with Fulham had been agreed, but Henderson was not keen on a move to London and vowed to stay and fight for his place.
Recalling the moment that he was told by Rodgers of the potential transfer, Henderson revealed he was “devastated”.
But his then manager’s offer to help develop aspects of the midfielder’s game proved crucial and helped set Henderson on his way to becoming an eventual leader of Liverpool.
“I can remember it like it was yesterday,” Henderson said on BT Sport’s Between the Lines. “It was just before we played Hearts at Anfield. I had a conversation with Brendan [Rodgers] in the hotel the day of the game, and to be fair to Brendan, he gave me the option, it was more the club that was willing to let me go.
“Brendan said ‘listen, it is down to you. You are not going to be starting as much as you would like but I will try to help you improve on what you need to improve on. You’re still young and if you do that then maybe you’ll get more game time’.
“I basically went back to my room, cried a little bit and was devastated, really. It wasn’t really an option for me to leave because I hadn’t been at the club very long and I had worked extremely hard to get there. I wasn’t just going to leave.”
Henderson had been signed for a fee believed to be close to £20 million from Sunderland in 2011, but struggled to cement his place during his first season on Merseyside.
He has since played more than 400 times for the club, and believes that chat in a hotel and subsequent guidance from Rodgers were vital.
“I sort of said straightaway: ‘I ain’t going anywhere. I will do everything I can to get in the team and I will prove people wrong’.
“From that moment, everyday in the gym I’d give everything, everyday on the training pitch, I’d give everything. Brendan helped me 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.
“He showed me positioning, where he wanted us with and without the ball, and I felt that helped us understand football even more. From that moment on, I just grew in confidence as time went on.”
