Conor Coady left Liverpool in 2014 and the Everton defender believes he made the right decision in leaving his boyhood club.
Liverpool have enjoyed great success in terms of bringing through young talent.
Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher are just two examples in recent memory, but Trent Alexander-Arnold is now flying the Liverpudlian flag too.
Not everybody can have that level of success though and some have to leave in order to find success elsewhere – and Coady is one such example.
Conor Coady left Liverpool in 2014
Coady was was born in St Helens and first joined Liverpool back in 2005 having featured for Rainford Rangers.
Coady grew up supporting Liverpool and set off on the path to become a first-team star at Anfield – one few players manage to conquer.
First-team opportunities were hard to come by though and Coady managed just two senior appearances for Liverpool.
After a loan spell with Sheffield United during the 2013-14 season, Coady was sold by Liverpool as he joined Huddersfield Town.
Coady lasted just one season there before moving on to Wolves, where he was converted from a midfielder to a defender and enjoyed huge success.
Out of nowhere, Coady had become an England international and a virtual mainstay in the Premier League, missing just one game in four top-flight seasons with Wolves.
That period came to an end this summer though as Coady made a move back to Merseyside, this time joining Liverpool’s bitter rivals Everton.
Some have wondered just how a boyhood Liverpool fan feels about playing for Everton but Coady appears to be loving life at Goodison Park.
Coady has now commented on his decision to leave Liverpool eight years ago – and he is adamant that it was the right call.
Coady has told Everton TV that the honest truth in his mind is that leaving his boyhood club wasn’t a hard decision at all.
The 29-year-old simply knew that he wouldn’t play regularly at Liverpool and decided to go and carve out a career for himself elsewhere.
Coady made it clear that leaving Liverpool was something he really wanted to do even though he had such a strong connection to the club, and that decision has ultimately taken him on this path – one that has led him to Everton.
“I’ll be honest with you. I’ve said this quite a lot of times to different people who’ve asked me. It wasn’t a hard decision,” said Coady. “People were like, ‘it must be [so hard] because you’ve been there all your life’. But it was because I’d had such a good experience going to Sheffield United where I was involved and I was fighting every week.”
“I was never a guaranteed starter but I was fighting every single day with the first team, working my socks off to make sure I had a chance to play at the weekend under a fantastic manager [Nigel Clough] who was pushing us every single day. I felt that and I didn’t want to go back to not having that. That’s where I was at when I came back from Sheffield United.”
“You mention it being a big decision. It was, but that was to pick the right club that was right for me. Brendan Rodgers was fantastic at that at the time in terms of how he helped me. But the big decision was picking the right club, not leaving Liverpool because that was something that I wanted to do.”
“I had such a good taste of being at Sheffield United. It didn’t matter to me – League One, wherever it was – it was an incredible football club that pushed me and made me better as a player and a person. It wasn’t hard to move on and I was lucky enough to get another fantastic club in Huddersfield,” he added, as quoted by the Liverpool Echo.
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