Liverpool star Jordan Henderson saved his career with a fight.
It was tough going for the ex-Sunderland when he first joined Liverpool, but the moment he bit back at one of the team’s stars was a real turning point.
Thats what Jamie Carragher said, reported Darren Wells from the Mirror. And the man in question? Well, it wouldn’t be an article about fighting if it didn’t include Luis Suarez.
Suarez fought for every inch of grass during games and was exactly the same in training, so when he decided to launch a volley at Jordan Henderson for dropping his standards, nobody thought he’d get one back.
But that was the moment some senior players realised they’d make something of Henderson – who didn’t always convince management.
"Carragher said: “He had a little bit of a bust up, not a major one, with Luis Suarez, a few words were exchanged in training, and I thought: ‘Oh yeah, I like that’.“Because Luis Suarez was our best player at the time, him and Stevie Gerrard, and Luis was getting frustrated with a pass he gave him or something, and for him to stand up as a young kid at 20 or 21 it just shows how much it meant to him.”"
That fight was never left the midfielder.
It was there when former manager Brendon Rodgers decided he’d swap him for Fulham’s Clint Dempsey and Hendo refused the move and it’s been there throughout the Jurgen Klopp years.
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His fight makes him the leader that we see on the pitch. It makes him valuable to the side, and it drives the rest of the squad on to do better and be better.
To stand up for himself against the best player in the Liverpool team must have taken some courage, especially when Henderson was trying to establish his own role in the squad.
Football is full of sliding door moments and losing the midfielder would have been such a negative moment for Liverpool – as well as for Henderson.
Who knows what would have happened if Rodgers had his way. Would Dempsey have achieved things at Anfield, or gone on to be another Rickie Lambert? A tryer but a deal that’s quickly forgotten about.
Thankfully that’s a question we’ll never know the answer to, all because Henderson had a fight.