Jordan Henderson's choosing Saudi set him on the road to nowhere

Almost unnoticed by the rest of Europe, over in the Netherlands a famous and once fabulous football institution is tearing itself apart from the inside.

AFC Ajax, four times winners of the European Cup and once a byword for class, cleverness and charm, has been brought to the verge of irrelevance by a civil war that has left bullet holes pockmarking the walls of the boardroom and the dressing room.

Executives have left at an alarming rate. Others have been demoted. Much of the decisions made after brushes with personal or financial scandal. Players have been sold as a squad has slowly been stripped bare. As for the managers, there have been six since Erik ten Hag left in 2022. The current incumbent is a 35-year-old Italian Francesco Farioli, previously employed by Nice in France and two teams in Turkey.

Pilloried by the media and lampooned now by their own fans, Ajax of Amsterdam is a football club desperately scrambling for a foothold and stuck fast in the middle of it all is Jordan Henderson.

Ajax provided refuge for Henderson last January when he needed escape from his personal and professional misery in Saudi Arabia. It was welcome at the time. The former Liverpool captain's unhappiness in the middle east was so profound and all consuming that at one stage it seemed as though he may have to consider walking out on his contract.

By the time he left for Ajax, Henderson was emotionally in a difficult place. Amsterdam seemed like a decent bolt hole at the time. Maybe it still does. But the fact is that feelers were put out across the Premier League over the course of the summer as regards a possible return for the 34-year-old . A little over a year since he walked away from a club he had captained to every conceivable glory and to whom he was contracted for two more years, Henderson appears to find himself at an almost insurmountable dead end.

Ajax have made him captain for the season. Farioli intends to build his team around him. Henderson didn't play in his team's recent league defeat to Breda but only because Farioli had prioritised the Europa League qualifiers that sat either side of it. It is only six years since Ajax came within a minute of reaching the Champions League final but UEFA's blue riband competition is out of reach these days. Ajax finished fifth in last season's Eredivisie, 35 points behind champions PSV.

So Henderson is liked and admired and respected at Ajax but the truth remains that the moment of hubris that saw him choose Steven Gerrard's Al-Ettifaq over Liverpool 14 months ago simply because Jurgen Klopp had warned him he may not get as many playing minutes stands out as one of the most damaging career decisions made by any Premier League player in recent times.

Henderson was still an England international when he left Liverpool. When the latest squad – chosen by interim coach Lee Carsley – was announced last week, Henderson's name wasn't even mentioned in passing. And this at a time when issues at the heart of the England midfield are there to be solved.

Watching Liverpool as Klopp prepared to take his own leave last season, it was also clear that Henderson would have played. Players such as Ryan Gravenberch – once of Ajax himself – and Wataru Endo were only signed once it was clear Henderson was leaving. As Liverpool campaigned on four fronts towards the end of last season – a time when bodies and experience were at a premium – a player who knew the physical and psychological demands of such a challenge would have been front and central.

We don't really know why Henderson chose not to stay and fight. We don't really know why – at the very least – he didn't give it a shot for one more season and then look to leave for a manageable fee with just a year left on his contract. His old Anfield team-mate James Milner secured a similar passage away from Merseyside, leaving Liverpool for Brighton when his contract expired in June 2023. At the age of 38, Milner is still playing in the Premier League and Brighton are third this time round.

Henderson maybe didn't fancy the relative mundanity of a move to a less glamorous club than Liverpool. Maybe he just fancied the money on offer in Saudi Arabia. He says his move was not about that and only he will really know.

What is clear is that Ajax are trending south and threatening to take one of English football's best men with them. We all suspected Henderson was making a big career mistake when he left Anfield for the Gulf in July last year. It seems now that he made another one to place squarely on top of it last January.

Time to cap home tickets

UEFA have capped the price of away tickets for their three club competitions this season. 

It's an admirable move but, as Aston Villa have now shown, there is a conversation to be had about home tickets too. Exploitation does not know segregation after all.

Justice? For what?

A petition launched by Arsenal fans in the wake of Declan Rice's sending-off against Brighton has called for referee Chris Kavanagh to be suspended and is entitled 'Justice for Arsenal'.

It needs 100,000 signatures to be debated in parliament and currently has 84. So it seems we will be waiting a while.

But the more serious point is that Kavanagh's hounding on social media and beyond for applying the letter of the law when awarding Rice a second yellow card for kicking the ball away will have repercussions for all of us. This is the way it always works.

Kavanagh knows he was right to caution Rice a second time and will also know he erred when failing to apply the same punishment to Brighton's Jao Pedro in the first half. But the din will have reached his ears and that of his colleagues at elite level.

So the next time such an incident occurs, Kavanagh and others will think twice. It's human nature to do so. The chances are the card will stay in the pocket and another well thought out initiative aimed at ridding football of the scourge of time-wasting will slowly be allowed to fade away.

Trouble for Toon

I remarked in this column last week that things didn't smell quite right at Newcastle.

Everything I have subsequently seen, read and heard about the state of things at St James' Park makes me think it may soon be time to open the windows.

Suarez says goodbye

I was present just over 10 years ago when Luis Suarez bit Giorgio Chiellini on the shoulder during Uruguay's World Cup game against Italy in Natal on Brazil's north-east coast. To this day I remember the electricity that fizzed round the Arena das Dunas when the reality of what had taken place first dawned. Had he actually done it again? It was the third time Suarez had bitten an opponent in four years.

Now 37, Suarez will long be remembered for all that and for the racist insult he is alleged to have spat at Manchester United's Patrice Evra at Anfield in 2011. The Uruguayan was as flawed a footballer as we have perhaps ever known.

But he was a genius, too, and one of the best I have ever seen play in the Premier League. When we talk about the greats of the modern era, Suarez is often overlooked and should not be. He announced a tearful retirement from international football this week but will play on in America's MLS.

At his peak, he would have graced any team from the current Premier League, and that includes Manchester City.

Meanwhile Cristiano Ronaldo vows to play on for Portugal. 'I never considered leaving,' he said. Of course he didn't.