Jonjo Shelvey commenced his second longest walk against Manchester United last month with a grievance and a sense of shame. Sent off under a global spotlight in a harsh defeat and Liverpool's first home game since the Hillsborough Independent Panel had revealed the truth, he had ended the first with a furious tirade at Sir Alex Ferguson. "That walk felt like a mile," he says.

The next trek was from players' lounge to car park after the game. A figure appeared before him in the narrow Anfield corridor. Ferguson. "It was a bit …" Shelvey does not complete the sentence. He grimaces, raises his shoulders and laughs at the awkwardness of the encounter instead. As with Jonny Evans earlier, this was a challenge he could not pull out of.

"I'd seen him [Ferguson] in the fourth official's ear after I made the tackle so as I was walking off I said: 'It's your fault I got sent off.' I knew I was in the wrong and then afterwards, as I was walking down the tunnel with my mate and his girlfriend, Ferguson was walking towards me. I just pulled him and apologised for what I had done.

"I said I was wrong and frustrated, I'm a young boy and emotions had got the better of me. But I told him I wouldn't have pulled out of the tackle if it was there. He said it was fine, that it takes a man to apologise, it was an emotional game and there are no hard feelings."

The initial instinct to berate Ferguson, the apology for it and the defence of the tackle on Evans that prompted the red card say a lot about the 20-year-old. Single-mindedness has been a feature of his rise from Romford to Liverpool regular under Brendan Rodgers and now, courtesy of a substitute's appearance against San Marino, England international. It was there in his decision to leave Arsenal as a nine-year-old, when he walked out of his boyhood favourites, West Ham United, and rejected a move to Chelsea in favour of first-team football with Charlton Athletic. It will be there in his approach to Sunday's Merseyside derby at Everton.

"My dad brought me up to respect people but if you have your opinion and feel you're in the right, not to be afraid to say it," he explains. "I think that counts in all aspects of life. You have to fear no one – except for our manager here. Stevie [Gerrard] and Carra [Jamie Carragher] have that attitude as well.

"They are born with it. It is about wanting to be a winner and a lot of games can be won on who wants it the most. I still stand by my decision that I wasn't going to pull out of that tackle. If I had pulled out I would have hurt myself and the fans would have gone mental."

Shelvey cost Liverpool £1.7m from Charlton in 2010, his arrival coming days before the departure of Rafael Benítez as manager and following a journey his Irish-traveller grandfather must have appreciated. "I was at Arsenal but I didn't like the manager of the under-10s at the time so I went to West Ham where my brother played.

"My dad was a coach at West Ham and thought my brother was being treated unfairly so he pulled him away from it. He said he would support me if I wanted to stay at West Ham, it was my decision, but I stuck with my brother and left.

"I had a year out playing local football before I went to Charlton at 12. West Ham was the club I supported so it was a hard decision to leave. Glenn Roeder was manager and he tried to make me stay but I couldn't. I've been brought up to be very family-oriented. I showed loyalty to my brother."

One afternoon at The Valley, Shelvey looked up at the directors' box and spotted Kenny Dalglish sat among the suits. His career choices and his talent had paid off. "Rafa was Liverpool manager but Kenny had a big part in signing me," the midfielder says. "Chelsea had been in and said if I joined I'd go into their development squad. I was enjoying my time at Charlton, I was playing first-team football with a good set of lads and, to me, it would have been a step backwards to join Chelsea even though they are a big club.

"From day one at Liverpool I have been involved in the first team. I remember coming up here the first time with my mum, my dad and my sister. We went to the training ground to meet Rafa. He took us into his office and started talking to my mum about Stoke and how they play the long ball. Mum was like: 'I don't really care about Stoke.' But it showed just how much Rafa loves football."

Including Benítez, though he would never play for him, Shelvey is on his fourth Liverpool manager in less than three years, a period that has also included a fruitful loan spell with Ian Holloway at Blackpool.

"Ian Holloway was first class and gave you the belief that you would always be playing, which is very important as a young lad," he says. "We even had to wash our own kit. Well, my girlfriend did it."

Roy Hodgson gave Shelvey his debut for Liverpool, and for England, and Dalglish increasingly exposed the midfielder to the demands and pressures of the first team. But he has truly impressed under Rodgers, making far greater impact in front of goal, in possession and in the tackle.

"Brendan has put his trust in me and I want to keep repaying him," he says. "It has been a rollercoaster this season because of the sending-off against United but there have been more positives than negatives. I am enjoying life.

"It is magnificent to say I've played for England but I'm sure it helped me that Roy was manager at Liverpool before. He knew what I could do. But the whole setup made me feel very welcome. I was nervous going in there on the Monday morning. I didn't know what to expect and thought no one would talk to me. I'd gone very quickly from playing in a park with my mates to sitting next to Wayne Rooney at dinner. It was a bit weird.

"Danny Welbeck pulled me when I arrived and said: 'Leave my manager alone.' That broke the ice."