Two years after his controversial move from Liverpool to Saudi Arabia’s Al Ettifaq, Jordan Henderson is back in the Premier League.
On Tuesday, Brentford announced the 35-year-old England international midfielder had joined them as a free agent, signing a two-year contract after Dutch side Ajax let him out early from a deal that ran until next summer.
It has been a strange journey back to his homeland for Henderson, while this all feels slightly out of character for Brentford. They do have a track record of signing experienced players who are out of contract or available on loan, including Winston Reid, Mathias ‘Zanka’ Jorgensen and Ben Mee, but none of them were older than 32 — or had the profile of the former Liverpool and England captain.
Henderson, who won eight trophies in 12 seasons at Anfield, including the Premier League and Champions League as captain, turned 35 last month and has signed a contract which places him towards the higher end of Brentford’s wage scale. He is a unique case in lots of ways.
He wanted to stay at Liverpool in the summer of 2023 but realised, following a conversation with their manager at the time Jurgen Klopp, that he would play fewer games than in previous seasons if he did. After that, he was convinced to move to the Saudi Pro League by Steven Gerrard, his former Liverpool team-mate, who was Al Ettifaq’s manager at the time.
Henderson was widely criticised for his decision. He had been a vocal supporter of the LGBTQ+ community but moved to a country where it is illegal to be transgender or homosexual. A couple of months after he went to Saudi Arabia, Henderson defended his actions in an interview with The Athletic.
“I can understand the anger,” Henderson said. “I get it. All I can say is I’m sorry they feel like that. My intention was never, ever to hurt anyone. My intention has always been to help causes and communities where I felt like they had asked for my help.
“Now, when I was making the decision, the way that I tried to look at it was I felt as though, by myself not going, we can all bury our heads in the sand and criticise different cultures and different countries from afar. But then nothing’s going to happen. Nothing’s going to change.
“I think people know what my views and values were before I left and still do now. And I think having someone with those views and values in Saudi Arabia is only a positive thing.”
Henderson and Gerrard at Al Ettifaq (Yasser Bakhsh/Getty Images)
Henderson denied reports he was being paid £700,000 ($936,000 at the current rate) a week at Al Ettifaq and was even asked about the prospect of joining a team further down the Premier League pecking order instead, such as Brentford (or Brighton & Hove Albion), if they had shown interest.
“I wanted something that would excite me,” he said. “And that’s not to say those clubs wouldn’t excite me, because they are great clubs and they come with really different challenges. But it needed to be something that I felt as though I could add value in and do and try something new — a new challenge, and for different reasons. And this opportunity with Stevie (Gerrard), in a totally different league and culture, was something that maybe would excite us in terms of the project that was put in front of us, in terms of the league and using my experience to try to help with that in many different areas and feeling that people-value.”
However, Henderson ditched that “exciting” new project after a few months. In the January, he left Saudi Arabia for the Netherlands. There, he helped to stabilise Ajax, who were on the way to recording their lowest final position (fifth) in the Dutch top-flight for over two decades.
Henderson then made 28 league appearances across the 34 games last season, starting 21 of them. Ajax were nine points clear at the top with five games remaining but crumbled and allowed PSV to steal the title.
Head coach Francesco Farioli resigned and was considered as a potential replacement for Thomas Frank, who left Brentford in June after nearly seven years in charge to take over at Tottenham Hotspur. The club contacted Ange Postecoglou, sacked by Spurs earlier that month, about succeeding Frank and also considered Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna but eventually decided to promote from within and appoint set-piece coach Keith Andrews.
Andrews is a former Republic of Ireland international midfielder who went on to work within their coaching set-up and also at club level for Sheffield United. He made an important contribution to Brentford last season, after initially being reluctant to apply for the role of set-piece coach, but this is his first whack at senior management.
As well as losing Frank, Brentford’s captain Christian Norgaard and first-choice goalkeeper Mark Flekken have joined Arsenal and Bayer Leverkusen respectively this summer and Manchester United have made multiple bids for top-scorer Bryan Mbeumo, while Nottingham Forest had an offer for fellow forward Yoane Wissa rejected.
It all adds up to a huge summer of change for the west London side, which is why Henderson’s signing makes perfect sense.
He will fill the leadership void in the squad created by the departures of Norgaard, Mee (the 35-year-old former Burnley captain left last month upon the expiry of his contract) and Flekken and provide support to an inexperienced head coach. The next oldest players at Brentford now are Ethan Pinnock, 32, and 29-year-old Mathias Jensen. Nathan Collins would be a popular choice as the new captain but nobody will be surprised if Henderson gets the armband.
Norgaard’s move to Arsenal freed up space for Henderson at Brentford (Stuart MacFarlane/Getty Images)
Andrews’ support staff includes Brentford’s former B-team head coach Neil MacFarlane, ex-Arsenal Under-21s lead Mehmet Ali and Martin Drury, who has been an assistant to Carlos Corberan at West Bromwich Albion and Spanish club Valencia. None of them have worked in the Premier League on a regular basis before, although Ali helped to integrate academy players into Arsenal’s first-team squad.
Henderson will take over the holding midfield role, and No 6 shirt, from Norgaard. The only alternatives are Vitaly Janelt and Yunus Emre Konak. The latter is a highly-rated Turkey Under-19 international but has played just 36 league minutes for the club since joining in January last year. Janelt is recovering from season-ending foot surgery in April and is into the final 12 months of his contract. Negotiations over a new deal are on hold until he recovers.
Though this signing addresses an urgent issue within the squad, that position is still an area Brentford need to reinforce with somebody younger. They did add midfielder Antoni Milambo from Dutch side Feyenoord early this month in a £16million deal but the 20-year-old is primarily an attacking player. Yehor Yarmoliuk, 21, performed impressively towards the end of last season but is mainly seen as a No 8.
Before they opted to sign Henderson, Brentford analysed his data metrics, including high-speed running and the total distance he was covering in matches. They considered how he would adapt going from playing in teams who dominate possession in most games at Liverpool and Ajax to being in one who tend to have the ball much less. Henderson made 45 appearances in all competitions last season, starting 35 times, but can Brentford rely on a 35-year-old to hold their midfield together every week across a testing 10-month Premier League campaign?
Henderson missed out on selection for England’s European Championship squad last summer and has only made three appearances for them since the beginning of 2024, with a single start against Andorra in June this year.
Maybe he feels that representing Brentford, who finished 10th in the 2024-25 Premier League, will provide him with a better platform to impress head coach Thomas Tuchel ahead of next summer’s World Cup. As a bonus that might make his transition to the club easier, he will be reunited with former Liverpool team-mates Caoimhin Kelleher, Sepp van den Berg and Fabio Carvalho, who have all joined Brentford in the past 12 months.
Henderson was an unused substitute for England’s loss against Senegal in a friendly last month (Eddie Keogh/Getty Images)
“I’ve always had huge admiration for (Brentford) and what they have achieved over the last few years,” Henderson said in an interview on their website after his signing was announced. “I have always been told about how well run and organised they are and that it is very family orientated. When I spoke to Phil (Giles, director of football), Lee (Dykes, technical director) and Keith (Andrews), I had a good feeling about everything.
“I still had that fire to come back and play in the Premier League. It’s the best league in the world, with the best players. It’s a big challenge and one I was keen on doing. It became an easy decision.
“When we had the meetings, there were areas where they felt I could get better at, which is music to my ears. I always want to improve and I want to help as many people around me at the same time.”
It will be interesting to see the reception that Henderson receives from opposition supporters in the coming season.
There was a lot of anger directed towards him over his transfer to Saudi Arabia but he has mainly been shielded from it, having not played a club match in England since. Those frustrations might have reduced slightly over the intervening two years but there are likely to still be a lot of dissenting voices, including from within Brentford’s own fanbase.
Henderson’s arrival will provide Andrews with a headache in one way, as he will be asked about all of this in press conferences. Frank skilfully handled questions about Ivan Toney’s ban for breaching rules on betting and concerns about Christian Eriksen following his return to football after an on-pitch cardiac arrest playing for Denmark. How will the new man cope?
From a footballing perspective, this is a move which makes a lot of sense for all parties. But it is impossible to escape the feeling that it might also be part of Henderson’s quest for redemption.
(Top photo: Rene Nijhuis/MB Media/Getty Images)
