Liverpool will be coming up against some familiar faces when they take on Brentford on Saturday
Sepp van den Berg, Fabio Carvalho and Jordan Henderson will all be facing their former club
Sepp van den Berg, Fabio Carvalho and Jordan Henderson will all be facing their former club
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You've heard of The Beatles. Well here come the Bee-tles.
Brentford have no less than four ex-Liverpool players on their books ready to take on the Reds in west London on Saturday evening, and all four of them have their own reasons to want to get one over on their former club.
We'll start with Fabio Carvalho, the least likely of the quartet to start but perhaps the most likely to bite the hand that used to feed him when it comes to scoring a vital goal against the Reds. Carvalho has already netted a late equaliser against Chelsea this season, and memorably scored a winning goal for Liverpool against Newcastle deep in stoppage time in August 2022.
Will there be more late drama on Saturday night? Carvalho would love it if there was, particularly given that he felt he was never given a fair crack of the whip at Anfield and has a major regret.
Speaking in May last year when reflecting on chats with Jurgen Klopp, Carvalho said: "Yes, I spoke to him. Spoke to him not a lot, if I’m being honest with you. Maybe I should have done that, I have should have done that a bit more."
Next up is Sepp van den Berg, who has become a mainstay at Brentford ever since joining the Bees from the Reds just over a year ago. And if it was up to him, he might return in the future.
Speaking in February, the Dutchman said: "I would be lying if I said that I did not dream of returning to Liverpool one day. That is still on my mind. But for now, it was better for my career to take a different path and play a lot." With 45 appearances for the Bees under his belt already, he seems to have made the right choice.
Next on the list is Caoimhin Kelleher, who played 67 times for the Reds after coming through the academy, picking up six major honours along the way.
It was widely accepted that the Irishman was right to leave the Reds this summer, particularly following the signing of Giorgi Mamardashvili, but his affinity to the club won't stop him wanting to get one over on them.
Speaking in June, Kelleher said: “I don’t think it was very difficult for me to leave. I felt for my own career that the time was right for me to go, to be a No 1 and to play every week." He's done just that so far, starting every Premier League game.
The last and by no means least comes Jordan Henderson, the Premier League and Champions League winning Reds captain who comes face to face with his former club for the first time since leaving for Saudi Arabia in 2023.
Reflecting on his time at Liverpool and departure while on England duty earlier this month, Henderson said: "It was a really tough period when I left Liverpool, I was there for a long period of time, 12 years.
“Leaving Liverpool itself was huge and really difficult and at any point it was going to be hard because it had been my life for so long and then it is just gone like that… so I have struggled for a period after that.
“I don’t know what it felt like, it felt like a break-up, it was just difficult and I think if you asked a lot of players when they left a club, not just Liverpool but when you have been at a club for so long and you have that attachment to them whether you retire or move on."
After the break-up comes the reconciliation on Saturday, and one man who is well aware of just how difficult Henderson will make it for the Reds is his former team-mate Andy Robertson.
Robertson said: “He’s a legend. He managed to help us bring the Premier League for the first time in a long time, lifted the Champions League. He’s an absolute legend of this club," said Robertson on Wednesday.
“He’s moved on, he’s back at Brentford and I think he’s putting in performance after performance there. Our midfield’s gonna need to be at it, because I can say for a fact that Jordan Henderson will be at it. He was at it every single day for us, and that won’t change at Brentford.”
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