As the Jordan Henderson buzz increased in intensity during the 2020 Sports Personality of the Year, it became clear that he was in with a chance of winning it.
Lewis Hamilton’s ultimate victory was no surprise in the end but the fact Hendo pushed him close is testament to not only how Liverpool fans view his role in their victories, but to his position as leader and his overall contribution to their turnaround in fortunes.
It’s worth remembering how Henderson was viewed when he first arrived from Sunderland; that is, an expensive mistake. £18m seemed expensive and a snap reaction to the Fernando Torres money that had been received in the January prior. Throw in bizarre tales that his ‘gait’ had put off Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United looking at him - the reasoning that he would somehow get injured more - and pressure was on a player who was still finding himself.
He was 21 when he arrived, and it seems as if much more was expected of him than his age suggested. He had experienced just two full seasons in his professional career, much of it spent perennially battling better teams for a side struggling. And at first both he and Liverpool were trying to work out what type of player he was, and what he could become.
People were turned off by him. All-energy but a little scattergun, Brendan Rodgers wasn’t immediately convinced and thought about selling, but his emergence as a key player was such that when he was red-carded against Manchester City in the Premier League title run-in, it goes largely overlooked that he was missing for the disasters against Chelsea and Crystal Palace.
And as his role increased within the team - even as Rodgers was sacked and mentor Steven Gerrard departed - so has his skillset. He moved backwards when Gerrard left but in five years under Jurgen Klopp he’s featured both as a sitting midfielder and an energetic number eight. This season he is making more passes P90 - 92.3 - than any other Liverpool player, with 27.2 of those going into the final third. In an injury crisis which has left Thiago Alcantara, Naby Keita and Alex-Oxlade Chamberlain marginalised, Henderson has pressed the issue.
His team-mates have been happy for him to do it. Make no mistake that Liverpool have emerged from their personnel crisis and are still top of the league. It only gets tougher for the opposition here once they, inevitably, suffer what Liverpool have in the past six weeks.
For a player like Henderson it’s less instructive to look at his role in the team and look more at the respect of his peers and the way he conducts himself. In a world where data looks to dictate everything, the intangibles of leadership and professionalism become undervalued and it’s something that Klopp knows and the rest of his team-mates understand.
Trent Alexander-Arnold said of him recently: "Jordan is the perfect role model. Anyone who isn’t pulling their weight gets a b********g off him," while Virgil van Dijk added: "I don’t know if he’s under-appreciated outside the club, but inside the club I know how highly we all think of him."
It’s also notable that when the silence was deafening in terms of a response from Premier League players to the coronavirus crisis, Henderson was the one to rally the other captains and establish an NHS fund. When the Rainbow Laces campaign needed support, Henderson was vocal on social media but also in his actions. It’s a cliche, but he leads by example, and it’s notable that Gerrard has enthused about Henderson’s ability to step into his shoes.
Perhaps Klopp sums it up best. "Is Hendo the perfect football player? No. Do I know anybody who is? No. But is he unbelievably important to us? Yes.
"If I had to write a book about Hendo, it would be 500 pages."
Henderson’s impact transcends on-pitch performance - his importance to Liverpool is just too great.
