Liverpool owners sacked director of football for signing future Kop and England captain Jordan Henderson
Damien Comolli was axed by the Fenway Sports Group and told the £16m he paid for Sunderland was too much
JORDAN HENDERSON’S signing at Liverpool cost the club’s former director of football – who snapped him up for just £16million – his job.
Damien Comolli, along with former manager Kenny Dalglish, studied everything about the ex-Sunderland midfielder before deciding to take him to Anfield from the Stadium of Light in 2011 but his settling-in period cost the transfer chief his job.
Henderson is now a Premier League star but, before the England midfielder found his feet on Merseyside, the Frenchman was axed with the purchase of the homegrown ace was at the top of the list of reasons for his harsh dismissal by the Fenway Sports Group.
as Henderson prepares to lead out the Three Lions against Slovenia, Comolli revealed: “He is one of the main reasons I got sacked.
“The day I got sacked they told me I had made a big mistake on Jordan and he was a waste of money.
“Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but I think we paid the right price.
“He was a young English, British player and we know very often that British players are overvalued.
“But we were more than happy to pay the price because we thought he would become an outstanding player.”
In the five years since his switch from Wearside, Henderson has grown as a player and a leader and has pulled off the impossible task of replacing Steven Gerrard as Kop captain.
And Comolli claims he knew back when the playmaker was battling relegation with the Black Cats that he would manage the unenviable of taking over from one of the Premier League’s greatest players despite having no Scouse connection.
The former Tottenham director added: “I never said it publicly, but I was convinced he would be the future captain.
“People will say it is easy to say now, but I was convinced at the time that he would become the Liverpool captain. Now he is and he is also the England captain.”
“I was totally convinced, as was Kenny [Dalglish], that we were doing the right thing for the club.
“He fitted the profile we were looking for. We knew he was an outstanding person, we knew he had leadership skills, we knew he was totally dedicated to football, to his passion, and we knew he was someone who wanted to improve on a day to day basis.
“We knew his physical abilities - his fitness stats were absolutely unbelievable.
“We were looking at statistics and we were going through a lot of midfield players in the Premier League and what amazed me and caught my eye was his ability to create quality chances.
“For a player who was so young, playing not in a top side, with all due respect to Sunderland, he was producing and creating more quality chances, or least as much, as top quality players in the Premier League.”
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