Johnson has no regrets

As Glen Johnson would attest, the spotlight tends to distort an image. The Liverpool full-back's extra-curricular activities are a case in point. Johnson, it was revealed last year, is learning Spanish.

It is, he explains, simply a pastime. Under the unremitting glare, though, it becomes something it is not.

"The lady from Rosetta Stone, who I got some tapes from, asked me to do a press thing," Johnson explains. "I knew exactly what would come of it, but I said that if it was just my words and it was for her use and her use only, I'd do it. So I wake up the next morning, and all I read is that Glen's going Spain, Glen's going Italy."

The truth is rather more prosaic, but it is easy to see why it seems an unsatisfactory explanation. "I've been learning for a few years," he says. "When you are fit and everything is going well, you finish about 2pm, and I was wondering what I could do with myself, so I thought I would learn another language. I chose Spanish, and that was that. That was the only reason."

It is not one, though, that fits the contorted perception of Johnson. His ears studded with diamonds, a tattoo swirling up his arm, the 26 year-old looks every inch the modern footballer - and he has the bad-boy reputation to go with it. It would be easy to imagine he would crave a move to Spain, for the money and the glamour. It is less easy to think he simply fancied an educational stimulus.

That desire for improvement, though, runs through his life. It is, he says, his philosophy, on and off the pitch. "Even if you are right at the top of your game you can improve. That is what I always try to do," he says.

A good thing, too, Liverpool fans might remark. Before a hamstring injury interrupted his season - he hopes to be fit for the visit of Newcastle next week - the England international was in a rich vein of form at odds with much of his two patchy years on Merseyside.

His fortunes, in that sense, have mirrored those of the club. When Johnson arrived, for £17 million in the summer of 2009, Liverpool were the fiefdom of Rafael Benítez, had just sustained their most convincing Premier League title challenge in two decades and were widely tipped as the team to unseat Manchester United. His signing, in fact, was hailed as the final piece of the jigsaw.

But Johnson is on his third manager and his second set of owners. He has added no trophies to the FA Cup he won at Portsmouth, and remains almost as distant from the Champions League as he was at Fratton Park.

So far has his reputation fallen that the man who was supposed to make it all click has been held up as the totem of all that went wrong with the final year of Benitez's reign, and he now finds his place under threat from two products of the club's youth system, Martin Kelly and John Flanagan.

Johnson would be forgiven for regretting choosing Anfield and all its unfulfilled promises ahead of a return to Stamford Bridge or a reunion with Harry Redknapp at Tottenham. "No. Not at all," he says. "I definitely see my future here. It has never entered my head that I made the wrong choice. I am not the sort of person who, just because things are going badly, would jump ship.

"It was difficult for the club at the start of this season but we are over the hill now and everything is looking bright. The new owners [Fenway Sports Group] coming in was like a cloud being lifted. Everyone feels like we are over the worst of it, we have fantastic owners, a fantastic manager and a fantastic coaching staff. With a few signings this summer, we will be a force."

Johnson has more reason than most to resist the feel-good factor sweeping through Anfield. He arrived at the club, after all, as a refugee from the financial apocalypse which almost snatched Portsmouth out of existence. His blessing for FSG, and all their new appointments, should count more than most.

"They have spent a lot of money," he says. "If it was me, I wouldn't spend that much unless I was dedicated to it. They do not want to be part of the club, they want to take it on. Why else would they buy it? It is exciting times.

"Kenny has brought the smile back to everyone's faces, and Steve Clarke [the first team coach] has been fantastic."

Johnson is, in short, at home. "I feel a lot more settled now than I did," he adds. "I had always lived in London before. It was a big change."

And he is in the perfect place to practise his Spanish, of course. "There are quite a few lads I can talk to. They are helping me get through."

How is he getting on? "Muy bien."

Source: The Telegraph

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