Chelsea can now complete Karim Benzema transfer on one condition with perfect blueprint revealed

Jordan Henderson's move to Saudi Arabia might not have been for everyone — it seems it was actually for very few people — but it has opened up an interesting landscape now for the rest of the league. The 33-year-old was, like it or not, one of the highest-profile players to move to the Middle East over the summer.

He isn't and wasn't Neymar. Ruben Neves is probably a more useful option on the field these days and even Alan Saint-Maximin cost more money — though that's not always a good indicator of quality. But this was the Liverpool captain, a player who had won the Premier League, twice been runner-up by a point, and led his team to three Champions League finals, winning one.

With plenty of time left on his contract there was no need, necessarily, to make the move away from a club he called home for over a decade. The lure that the league had on him, the promises of a project, and, let's be honest, a big payday, were too good to turn down.

This was what worried fans from the start. However, it is the old Henderson — the ally, the man keen to continue with his top-level playing career, and the guy ideally not baking under 40-degree heat every day — that gives teams a way out. Henderson is the first to make the sharp U-turn but it's hard to see him being the last.

For Chelsea, who turned him down along with a host of other Premier League sides being offered his services at short notice this window, Henderson gives them hope. Not that N'Golo Kante will be back to run around pitches in England again, filling the positions that their own expensively assembled trio cannot. It's not that Edouard Mendy really is the goalkeeper that the club needs in retrospect — that, in all likeliness, could well be Djordje Petrovic. It's that