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Brentford’s draw at Anfield brought the curtain down on a season that came agonisingly close to ending with European qualification. But while disappointment dominated the mood among the travelling Bees fans, Jordan Henderson’s decision to acknowledge the Liverpool supporters before fans in the Brentford end sparked an angry reaction from some

With emotions now cooled, Beesotted contributor Ali Mullaley looks back at the ‘Clapgate’ controversy and asks whether the criticism of the Brentford captain was justified

I really should learn not to tweet when feeling strong emotions about happenings in a football match! Minutes after the final whistle at Anfield, I posted “If Jordan Henderson never plays for Brentford again, it will be too soon. Absolutely disgraceful way to behave.” Needless to say, once it started circulating on Liverpool Twitter, my mentions exploded (one of the few good tools left on the platform is ‘Mute this conversation’!). They were most definitely not happy! Now that the dust has settled, I accept I was perhaps a little harsh and may have over-reacted ever so slightly, but, like many others, I still have strong feelings about how a senior player, who we bought to be a leader in the dressing room, seemed to forget who he was playing for that day.

Jordan Henderson in his Liverpool pomp was quite some player. As Klopp, put it so well, “You don’t just need those who can play the piano; you need those who can carry the pianos”. Henderson was the ‘piano carrier’ supreme for Klopp’s side; their ‘Captain Fantastic’ who led them to European and Premier League glory. However, at 35, with two years away from the Premier League (including the misjudged and ill-fated six months in Saudi), there were doubts about what Brentford were going to get for their money. As I said at the time to a Brighton supporting friend of mine, “He’ll either by our Milner, or it won’t work at all”. The one thing we were certain of, though, was that he would bring experience, leadership and a winner’s mentality to what was largely a young dressing room: only last week, for example, he roused the team from 85 minutes of collective stupor to almost getting all three points against Palace.

We all knew that Sunday was going to be an emotional day for Henderson: his first time back at Anfield since his unheralded, lonely exit during Covid. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in having expected him to get his plaudits at the end of the match and was fully prepared to support that: hell, I might even have joined in the applause! However, during the match and in the immediate aftermath, I fully expected him to be totally professional in his approach to the game as a Brentford player.

Most Bees fans were surprised to see Henderson in the starting line up on Sunday – even given that Yarmoliuk was injured. Despite starting the season well, Hendo had dropped off considerably since his return from injury and the Janelt, Damsgaard, Jensen midfield had mostly worked well. Perhaps, time was finally catching up with a player whose game was built around stamina, running and being all over the pitch. Nevertheless, start he did and proceeded to have probably his worst 60 minutes in a Brentford shirt.

He could barely find a teammate, to the extent that it felt like he was still playing for Liverpool at times! It seemed like the emotion of the occasion had, perhaps understandably, over-whelmed him. On the hour, Keith had seen enough and up went the number 6 on the subs board. Anfield rose to applaud their former captain, and Henderson started to trudge off. I have no idea if the players knew how the stars were aligning for us in all the other matches (I suspect they didn’t), but every single one of them knew that we needed a win to stand any chance of Europe and we were 1-0 down.

I fully expected him to pick up pace at any moment and run off whilst applauding the Liverpool fans, but no, he continued to move at a snail’s space, hugging every Liverpool player in sight, until, after what seemed like forever, he eventually reached the touchline. In all that time, he barely acknowledged his teammates. There was no cajoling or encouraging: that whole walk was about Jordan Henderson and nobody else. All of this may have been forgotten at the end of the match, but, then, with many of the Brentford players on the ground and both players and fans devastated at having not quite done enough to get into Europe, Henderson headed, not towards the Brentford fans with the rest of the team, but straight for the Kop.

Whilst his disappointed team-mates applauded their own fans, Hendo was running around Anfield grinning like a cheshire cat: the misjudgement was wild; the lack of any leadership mind-blowing. By the time, he finally reached the away end, most were furious; many booed; one lifelong Brentford fan I know, who is normally the most even-tempered of fans and never over-reacts to anything, admitted to me afterwards that he was so furious he almost got thrown out of the ground! I can only compare the reaction in its venom to Ollie Watkins and Pointgate (and Ollie was at least actually playing for the opposition!).

Let’s be very clear, though – contrary to accusations from Liverpool fans, a self-styled “Jordan Henderson Enthusiast” on Twitter and some bloke who calls himself “Master” on TalkSport (I mean, really???) – nobody, but nobody, thought that Henderson’s antics cost us Europe. We can all point to various matches in the last couple of months when that happened: the holy grail was in our hands for weeks and we dropped it multiple times. Nope, the reason myself and others were so angry, was that Jordan Henderson not once, but twice, forgot two things – that he was supposed to be a leader (I wonder what Thomas Tuchel would have made of the whole thing) and that he was playing for Brentford Football Club, who had something pretty big (for us) riding on winning that game. Fine words after the game are all well and good, but actions always speak louder than words. If Hendo’s actions on Sunday had matched his words, he could still have had his flowers at Anfield and we would all, most likely, have been agreeing how lovely it was.

I hope that Jordan reflects on Sunday and maybe realises he could have handled things much better, whilst still getting his plaudits from the Anfield faithful. I hope he has a good World Cup and comes back to Brentford something like the player he was at the start of the season. Perhaps, he will, in the end, help lead us to Europe: after all, who doesn’t love a redemption arc? Marcello Trotta anyone?

Ali Mullaley

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