Past his prime or shrewd signing? How ex-Liverpool star Jordan Henderson will fare at Brentford

Jordan Henderson is back. After a lengthy, self-imposed exile in Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands, the veteran midfielder is set to come back to the Premier League with Brentford and with a point to prove – and a place in the England squad to hang on to. But has he still got what it takes?

For years at Liverpool, Henderson was one of the most economical and reliable players in the top flight. Little got past him, he seldom gave the ball away, and he had a deeply underappreciated passing range. He was the engine room of Jürgen Klopp’s best teams. That doesn’t mean he’s still the same player, though.

His performances for England since his recall under new head coach Thomas Tuchel have suggested a player who, although still steady and unflappable, has lost a little bit of steam – so can he fill the substantial hole left behind at Brentford by Christian Nørgaard? Or will Henderson’s Premier League swan song prove to be out of tune?

Brentford have a tricky season ahead – so why turn to Jordan Henderson?

At the start of the week, it was reported that Henderson was seeking to terminate his contract at Ajax, the second consecutive club which he would leave by mutual consent ahead of his appointed time. A brief spell with Al-Ettifaq in Saudi Arabia proved to be a mistake, and even though he played plenty for Ajax, he decided that he wanted to come home.

Most pundits expected him to sign for boyhood club Sunderland, but instead it was Brentford and their new coach Keith Andrews who won the race – if indeed there was one – and who have turned to Henderson to step into Nørgaard’s shoes following the Dane’s departure for Arsenal.

Andrews will be keenly aware that he faces a very difficult task over the coming year. Not only is he following in Thomas Frank’s outsized footsteps, but he is set to lose several key players – Nørgaard is gone, Bryan Mbeumo seems destined to follow, and there are several teams who would love to sign Yoane Wissa.

That means a rebuild in attack and in midfield, and Nørgaard’s determination and energy will be tricky to replace. Few could accuse Henderson of lacking the former quality, but there is some evidence that the latter may be in dwindling supply.

Henderson is likely to be part of the puzzle in terms of how Brentford plan to go about reimagining their midfielder after Nørgaard rather than a straight-up replacement, but his contributions will still be important. If he can’t play at something like the level he did for Liverpool – and the level at which Tuchel clearly believes he can still play for England – then he may be a burden on a squad which is expected to lose a large part of its quality this summer.

For Henderson, of course, the stakes are both a place at the 2026 World Cup in the United States and his reputation, which for many fans has been tarnished by his abortive spell in the Saudi Pro League – and that’s just the feelings of those who appreciate him the first time around.

Even at his very best, when he was the metronome in a midfield which won the Champions League and the Premier League, there were plenty of people who didn’t value him. He was always treated by some as a trundler, the footballing equivalent of a hard-working medium-pace bowler who didn’t concede many runs but never took any wickets. Now, with what pace he had slowly deserting him, he must either impress or be forever under-rated and over-maligned.

But he still offers immense experience, and Tuchel has openly stated that he believes that the intangible qualities Henderson brings to a dressing room are a suitable justification for his selection in the national side. Perhaps Andrews believes in the value of Henderson’s influence, too. But from outside of training pitches of Al-Ettifaq and Ajax and England, we can only judge Henderson’s progress – forwards or back – from what he has done on the pitch.

Jordan Henderson is slowing down – but can he still do a job for Keith Andrews?

Henderson’s performances for England during Tuchel’s brief tenure as England manager haven’t generated a great deal of enthusiasm, although it would be tricky to point to anything that he has done wrong.

Rather, he has tended to play for less than 90 minutes, knock the ball around with a quiet efficiency, and ultimately offer a somewhat limited impact on play. Not bad, by any means, but it’s not been easy to see why he would be selected ahead of younger, speedier and more sparkling alternatives.

The impression of a competent but perhaps less exceptional player is borne out by the stats. Although many of the key markers for a central midfielder have remained steady between his Liverpool days and the 2024/25 campaign in the Netherlands – his passing remains just as accurate, for instance – there are some areas in which he has unquestionably declined.

For starters, although his success rate in the tackle remains undimmed, he is making fewer tackles and forcing fewer turnovers per game than he did during his heyday – around 25% fewer than in the 2019/20 title-winning season, for instance. That suggests that while there has been no drop-off in quality, his reduced mobility is preventing him from getting into the positions needed to make crucial interventions quite as often.

He's also creating fewer chances than he used to. He was directly involved in moves which led to 2.93 shooting chances per match for Ajax over the past year, which is a very healthy number for a notionally ‘defensive’ midfielder, but still lower than the 3.33 he was responsible for at his peak. A significant drop-off in direct passing attempts and success rate implies that some of that always-undervalued passing range is gone.

And these are the stats achieved when playing in the Eredivisie, undeniably a lower level than that of the Premier League – but it’s worth noting that while he can’t match Nørgaard for the number of blades of grass covered in a match these days, he still creates more opportunities and passes more precisely, even now.

If Henderson were to be crow-barred in as a like-for-like replacement for Nørgaard, he would probably fail. If Andrews intends for Henderson to play the same high-tempo, hard-pressing role, then he is unlikely to do very well. But if the intention is to add some stability and calm into the midfield, to provide a tempered base from which possession can be sensibly distributed, signing Henderson could still work.

Henderson still played 90 minutes in the significant majority of Ajax’s matches last year as they finished second in the Dutch top flight, was still seen as such a valued member of the team that he was made club captain despite having been there for barely five minutes, and still played very solid football, even if wasn’t the kind of football you’d crack the champagne open for.

If Henderson is one part of Andrews’ solution for navigating what could become a difficult campaign, then it may not be such a bad move – and perhaps, if used correctly, Henderson might just remind people that there’s a reason that he has 84 England caps and a small mountain of medals to show off. But while there are still signs of life in the old dog, there’s no doubt that his tail wags a little less than it once did. The results of this experiment will be interesting to watch.