Inside Steven Gerrard’s Saudi disaster with huge payday, Henderson fiasco and quit demands | Football | Sport

Steven Gerrard has been given an eye-watering salary and a mind-boggling budget to make things work at Al-Ettifaq, but his Saudi Pro League side are floundering.

Now 15 months into the job after taking over last July, the Liverpool legend led his players to a sixth-place finish last season, a full 48 points behind eventual champions Al-Hilal.

The picture is even bleaker this campaign, with three wins from eight games leaving them 10th in the table, and second-tier Al-Jabalain knocking them out of the nation’s biggest cup competition.

With Gerrard on thin ice, Express Sport takes you on a deep dive through his year-and-a-bit in the Middle East…

Huge payday

The contract extension Gerrard signed in January this year reportedly took his salary to a dizzying £15million per year. At the time, it made him the fourth-highest-paid manager in the world behind Diego Simeone, Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp.

The staggering wage, worth just shy of £300,000 a week, is thought to be three times what he earned at Aston Villa and significantly more than he ever earned as a player. Gerrard is also believed to be paid conditional bonuses on top of his base salary – though Al-Ettifaq’s poor form suggests that many of those will remain untriggered.

Henderson fiasco

Al-Ettifaq bosses will have marvelled at Gerrard’s pulling power when he successfully lured Jordan Henderson from Liverpool last summer. But the Reds reunion did not last long.

Henderson was slammed for making the move due to Saudi Arabia’s political climate, fell out of England contention, and ditched the club after just five months. Adding insult to injury for the 34-year-old was the fact he deferred his wages and left the Middle East empty-handed before signing for Ajax.

“I was disappointed,” Gerrard admitted. “[As with] any manager who loses his captain during the season, it’s not ideal and I told Jordan that.”

While the move did not pan out for Henderson, his ex-Liverpool team-mate Georginio Wijnaldum is now into his second season with Al-Ettifaq, where he is joined by the likes of Moussa Dembele and Demarai Gray.

Liverpool loyalties

Of his 18 years as a professional player, Gerrard spent 17 of them at boyhood club Liverpool. And he recently put his foot in it by admitting that he schedules Al-Ettifaq training sessions around Reds matches so that he can watch them, even if it means dragging players out late at night.

“I’ve got more than one eye on it,” he told The Redmen TV. “We put all our schedule around the Liverpool games. The players are onto me now.”

Quit demands

With one win in their last six games across all competitions, an increasing number of Saudi voices are calling for Gerrard’s dismissal, and some reports indicate that Al-Ettifaq are poised to swing the axe.

Journalists Mohammed Al-Sadaan and Turki Al-Ajmah have both commanded Gerrard to step down, lumping extra importance on this Saturday’s meeting at home to Al-Qadisiyah.