From Zero to (Almost) Hero

By TTT Subscriber Jon Rushton.

After the disappointment in Basel, I made the drunken mistake of looking on Twitter and a couple of comments leapt out at me – they were calling out Jordan Henderson as a weak captain in the moment of a cup final loss.

It seemed a bit harsh. It is tricky to inspire a team when you are not on the pitch. But this fuelled an idea that I’ve had for a long time in football. There are only three types of footballer from my perspective.

Bear with me, I promise this has something to do with Dejan Lovren…

Type one is the Hero Footballer. Think Luis Suarez in his final season for Liverpool, or Steven Gerrard for a good decade. A Hero Footballer is obviously and undoubtedly one of the best players in the league, and he happens to be playing for your team right now. Hero Footballers are what it is all about, and everyone can see it. Fuck yeah. 

Then there are Abject Footballers. Losers. Footballers who are in your side, and they are dreadful. They stink out the place in an irredeemable funk of uncoordinated direness. They are amongst the worst players in the league by any objective eye. You wonder how they ended up on a Premier League pitch whilst you ended up – equally uncoordinated – sitting on an office earning less than one fiftieth of their wage.

And then there’s the other ninety percent of players. They are in the Grey Zone. This is where Jordan Henderson and his sore foot sit this season. Alongside the majority of players in every club of the Premier League. Some fans love them, others can’t abide them and a whole bunch of others just aren’t sure. It’s what most football debate revolves around – The Grey Zone.

But I appreciate that I wasn’t asked to write about Jordan Henderson. Or Luis Suarez. Or Steven Gerrard. I was asked to write about Dejan Lovren. And yet all this came to my mind and I’m trying to figure out why…

The rest of this review is for Subscribers only.

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