Chelsea want Jordan Henderson. What is the enduring appeal of the ex-Liverpool captain?
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(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Adding to this, Share article 52 There are special ingredients that coaches tend to identify in Jordan Henderson, who has nearly always backed himself while performing with a sense that he has everything to prove.
Meanwhile, The trait runs all the way back to his earliest days as a footballer, perhaps best illustrated by a story that led to a first-team opportunity at Sunderland.
Notably, It is almost 18 years to the day since Henderson and the rest of the club’s under-21 players were hauled back to the training ground by the first team manager, Roy Keane, after losing a pre-season game at non-League Gateshead.
As per the latest buzz, Keane had not attended the match, but he was furious with the result. Neil Bailey, Keane’s appointment as a youth coach, remembers Keane locking the dressing room door and asking each one of the players whether they thought they were good enough to have a career in the game. “A lot of them shied away from the confrontation,” Bailey told The Athletic in 2020 . “But Jordan went: ‘Yeah, I do…,’ which impressed Roy.”
In further updates, The following afternoon, Keane rewarded Henderson for standing up for himself with a first team debut against Ajax in another friendly at the Stadium of Light. Three months later, he was involved in a competitive match, introduced as a half-time substitute by Keane with Sunderland already three goals behind and well on their way to a 5-0 drubbing at Chelsea.
On top of that, Even someone as driven as Henderson would surely not have imagined on that November afternoon that he would be returning to Stamford Bridge, aged 36, to sign for a club now managed by Xabi Alonso.
Back in 2008, Alonso was in the middle of his last season at Liverpool, where Henderson later played for 12 seasons, captaining the team for seven. Upon his own departure from Liverpool, Jurgen Klopp tried to replace him with a record transfer for Moises Caicedo, and when he did not get him, he went for Romeo Lavia but missed out again to Chelsea.
Source: The New York Times