When Liverpool bought Jordan Henderson in the summer of 2011 as a 21 year old from Sunderland for £20m, a lot was expected of him. He was deemed to be the next big thing for England. The then manager Kenny Dalglish even compared him to be like Steven Gerrard, that he is gonna eventually take his place in the team. But very quickly it was proving to be otherwise. He used to work very hard for the team as a workhorse but there was nothing more than that to his game. Even Kenny Dalglish was not sure about his best position and tried him at different positions mainly in the central midfield or in the right flank but with very little contributions.
Eventually Kenny Dalglish was sacked as Liverpool Manager in 2012 and was replaced by Brendan Rodgers. Brendan Rodgers initially wanted to bring in Clint Dempsey from Fulham to boost his attack and sell Jordan Henderson to Fulham as a swap deal. Henderson was baffled by this and refused to go to Fulham and eventually that deal did not materialise as Dempsey chose to go to Tottenham Hotspurs instead. Jordan Henderson got very little games that year and mostly warmed the bench in Liverpool dugout.
In 2013-14 season he started brightly playing in all of the initial games for Liverpool alongside Steven Gerrard. He was kind of a rejuvenation for Liverpool and his watershed moment came in the match against Tottenham Hotspurs at White Hart Lane in December 2013 when in the absence of the injured Gerrard he took control of the midfield and Liverpool won the match with 5 goals to nil with Henderson scoring once and assisting another. That was the game where he really came out of the shadows of the great Gerrard and started stamping his own mark in the following matches. His impact was so much that Liverpool were very close to be crowned the Premier League Champions and when he was suspended for the last three matches of the season Liverpool's title challenge fell apart and eventually they were 2nd in the season.
The following season he started to exert more and more influence in the games with his all round box to box displays from the heart of Liverpool midfield. With Gerrard less involved in games mostly due to injuries, Henderson stepped forward to take the mantle on himself to be the skipper of the team temporarily. Liverpool had a very difficult season with Luis Suarez gone and Daniel Sturridge mostly injured but it was Henderson who started inspiring Liverpool just as Gerrard did for all these years. And after the end of the season when Gerrard took the decision of finding new challenges in MLS it was a very easy decision for Brendan Rodgers to handover the responsibility to lead the side to a bright future and glory to Jordan Henderson, the man who was deemed to replace Gerrard all those years back.
The following season he started to exert more and more influence in the games with his all round box to box displays from the heart of Liverpool midfield. With Gerrard less involved in games mostly due to injuries, Henderson stepped forward to take the mantle on himself to be the skipper of the team temporarily. Liverpool had a very difficult season with Luis Suarez gone and Daniel Sturridge mostly injured but it was Henderson who started inspiring Liverpool just as Gerrard did for all these years. And after the end of the season when Gerrard took the decision of finding new challenges in MLS it was a very easy decision for Brendan Rodgers to handover the responsibility to lead the side to a bright future and glory to Jordan Henderson, the man who was deemed to replace Gerrard all those years back.
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