Johnson is committed to the Liverpool cause

Liverpool: 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.

"The lady from Rosetta Stone, who I got some tapes from, asked me to do a press thing," Johnson said.

"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 unsatisfactory.

"I've been learning for a few years," he said. "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.

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. But that desire for improvement, he says, is 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 said.

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 two patchy years so far.

Final piece of the jigsaw

His fortunes, in that sense, have mirrored those of the club. When Johnson arrived, for £17 million (Dh103.14 million) in the summer of 2009, Liverpool were the fiefdom of Rafael Benitez, 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 and would be forgiven for regretting choosing Anfield ahead of a return to Stamford Bridge or a reunion with Harry Redknapp at Tottenham.

"Not at all," he said. "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."