30-year-old former Liverpool player admits it ‘wasn’t that difficult’ to leave Anfield

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Liverpool are set to lose their most important figure of a generation when Jurgen Klopp walks out of the club this summer.

Jurgen’s departure is going to hurt. A lot. It comes on the back of a number of painful exits over recent years. Club legends like Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino, James Milner and Jordan Henderson have all taken their final Anfield bow in the past two years.

But not every farewell is quite so emotional. Take Conor Coady for example. The 30-year-old is a local boy and having played twice for the club, an academy graduate. But speaking to The Rest Is Football podcast today, Coady admitted that his decision to leave Liverpool was not a hard one.

“It wasn’t that difficult [to leave] because I was desperate to play football,” says the now Leicester City player. “I went out on a loan spell to Sheffield United in League One and it was amazing. I loved it. I played 50 games and played at Wembley, so we went and had a season which was fantastic and that made me. The feeling of being there and playing every week, I loved it.

“So to go back and be with the under-23’s, I was realistic at Liverpool there was some fantastic players ahead of me, Steven Gerrard and Jordan Henderson to name a few, so to go back and put myself in that bracket I wasn’t ready for that, I understood where I was at and was realistic, but I was desperate to play football in front of crowds.

“So when I got the opportunity to play for Huddersfield it was something I jumped at.”

Coady unbothered by Liverpool exit

Although this is understandable from Coady, it is the latest in a line of slightly weird barbs towards his former club.

First of all, the England international took umbrage with a section of the Anfield crowd while playing for Wolves in 2022.

“I do get a few [boos] when I come here, to be honest,” Coady said after a game between Liverpool and Wolves that year. “I don’t really know what they expect when I’m coming here with Wolves and I want to win every game.”

From that point, the Scouser appeared to have it in for his former club. Also in 2022 he joined Everton and was very quick to make a big show of how he was very much now a Blue.

Posting pictures of his family all decked out in Everton shirts seemed to signal that Coady had very much changed allegiance.

Not that Liverpool will be too bothered, but it all seems a little bit petty from Conor.

After all, he did only spend a season on-loan at Goodison Park. Liverpool brought him through from being a boy, and although he didn’t make the first-team permanently, propelled him into senior football.

So, although his reasoning behind this is fair, it does feel like there may be some resentment lingering from Coady. That would be unwarranted.

In the long-term there’s a chance that he could have made it at Liverpool. But as he says, the names ahead of him made that difficult. He’s made a brilliant career for himself and is still going strong. It’s time to move on.