Jordan Henderson (Liverpool -> Al-Ettifaq (5 months) -> Ajax)

He isn’t getting stripped of the captaincy. Firstly, because he doesn’t deserve to have it stripped off him (he hasn’t done anything wrong to warrant a stripping, even though I don’t think he should be captain) and secondly Jürgen clearly doesn’t give a sh*t about the armband. It’s about personalities and teamwork.

Whilst I agree that it won’t be taken away from him, he doesn’t have to have to done anything to warrant it happening. Hyypia was captain and then it got handed on to Gerrard.

But I think you’re right, I don’t think Klopp is interested because he expects the same from all of his players, the armband is probably just a matter of formality to him.

I agree, but he hasn't played that role for so long, and for me, Wijnaldum is ahead of him.

If Keita and Fabinho becomes our main players, I can see Hendo and Wijnaldum fighting for that 3rd midfield role and playing more the more aggressive pressing role, and if Klopp doesn't fancy that, there is always Ox, Lallana or Fekir (if he signs )!

Can't believe how balanced and better our midfield looks with Fabinho and Keita, it's sickening!

I honestly don't see how Gini plays a part if we're to be successful.

We give Can grief for inconsistency but Gini is a bigger culprit - you can immediately rule out an 8/10+ (arguably a 7/10, too) performance from him if we're away from home.

Keita and Fabinho are miles ahead of him and Ox is too. A fully fit Lallana is also (in my opinion).

I genuinely think we're going to see how much this current group of midfielders have struggled and stagnated our performances at times this season when the likes of Fabinho and Naby show their stuff.

The standard has been raised. Of all our current CMs, I think Gini will struggle the most to keep up.

I honestly don't see how Gini plays a part if we're to be successful.

We give Can grief for inconsistency but Gini is a bigger culprit - you can immediately rule out an 8/10+ (arguably a 7/10, too) performance from him if we're away from home.

Ignoring the inconsistency (I don't think he has been that inconsistent since the turn of the year), Wijnaldum is the better footballer, agile, stronger, keeps the ball ticking better and more comfortable playing in tight areas. And with our new midfielders, distribution will be a lot different to how it was, and I can see Wijnaldum adapting a lot better than Hendo and Milner.

Keita and Fabinho are miles ahead of him and Ox is too. A fully fit Lallana is also (in my opinion).

Miles better at what they specialize in for sure, but I see Wijnaldum more how Hendo was in 13/14 season but with better football qualities, and when he is on his game, I really don't think there is many  better.

I genuinely think we're going to see how much this current group of midfielders have struggled and stagnated our performances at times this season when the likes of Fabinho and Naby show their stuff.

The standard has been raised. Of all our current CMs, I think Gini will struggle the most to keep up.

I agree, I think people will now see the difference in having a proper #6 in there. But I disagree about Wijnaldum. I too was on the same boat as you in the first half of the season, but Danzel pointed out some sh*t before which made me focus on him more, and going back to games and watching him closely, I think he is so underrated. I think you will be surprised

Ignoring the inconsistency (I don't think he has been that inconsistent since the turn of the year), Wijnaldum is the better footballer, agile, stronger, keeps the ball ticking better and more comfortable playing in tight areas. And with our new midfielders, distribution will be a lot different to how it was, and I can see Wijnaldum adapting a lot better than Hendo and Milner.

Miles better at what they specialize in for sure, but I see Wijnaldum more how Hendo was in 13/14 season but with better football qualities, and when he is on his game, I really don't think there is many better.

I agree, I think people will now see the difference in having a proper #6 in there. But I disagree about Wijnaldum. I too was on the same boat as you in the first half of the season, but Danzel pointed out some sh*t before which made me focus on him more, and going back to games and watching him closely, I think he is so underrated. I think you will be surprised

At their best, perhaps yeah Gini is the most technically talented player of the current midfield crop. However, his movement off the ball needs a lot of work because he gets caught flat footed too often and stationary when we have the ball (and that goes for Hendo, too). His thought process can hold him back, too. He also goes missing when we don't have the ball.

But it's not just watching Gini specifically though, instead our midfield for the majority of the season as a whole - Milly, Hendo, Can and Gini. Our fullbacks get the ball too deep at times because the pass in to the forward channels is delayed by midfield, our attackers get man marked and then our fullbacks receive the ball only to get closed down too easy, forcing them to go back or knocking a hopeful ball down the flank for the winger - both options are bad for us. A better midfield gives support in those areas. Ox did that for us for a couple months and he would've been invaluable against Madrid to get us moving forward. A fit Lallana, also. Keita does that for RBL. Fabinho will do that from deep in midfield.

Modric and Kroos were outstanding for Madrid when supporting their wide men. It allowed them to keep the ball in our half and get around our press with one-touch passing despite us trying to tighten the game up. They would then have the centre of the pitch/opposite flank wide open to exploit because our press was focused on one area of the pitch.

Adding two players who are more tactically aware of where to be will improve us so much in retaining and recycling possession. I have no doubt.

with our 2 new lads and OX and Gini and Adam Milner and Henderson look like they may struggle but we really don't know how statisfied Jürgen is with these lads. MAybe they have done the job he asked them to do and he is happy but we all know we either need guile or power or even better a combination of the two which we don't have at present.

Be interesting to see how Hendo does for England tonight. He was very good in their friendlies I thought, but Southgate has left him with very little help in midfield for tonight's game. Deli Alli and Lindgard are all about running and movement. Not so much tackling or passing.

If I was Tunisia I'd be sticking a man on Hendo the whole game and I think that would cut off England's supply. So could be a tougher game for him than it probably should be. ( They are short of options for a passing CM, England - Hendo is the closest they've got. They should really have taken Shelvey.) Anyway, Southgate is giving an awful lot of work to Hendo if he is going to set up like he has tonight.

Hendo playing really well tonight for Ingerland in a more positive midfield role.

Hendo playing really well tonight for Ingerland in a more positive midfield role.

What do you mean by more positive role? I didn't notice any difference between the role he plays for us. He sat a lot and was the deepest midfielder tonight?

I've got to say though he played very well tonight. His passing was much better than usual. He was much more adventurous and much more creative too.

A good performance against a poor Tunisia side still won't convince me he's a premier league winning midfielder but credit where it's due, he played well tonight. I'm looking forward to seeing how he performs against better opposition.

What do you mean by more positive role? I didn't notice any difference between the role he plays for us. He sat a lot and was the deepest midfielder tonight?

I've got to say though he played very well tonight. His passing was much better than usual. He was much more adventurous and much more creative too.

A good performance against a poor Tunisia side still won't convince me he's a premier league winning midfielder but credit where it's due, he played well tonight. I'm looking forward to seeing how he performs against better opposition.

That's what i meant by a more positive role.

Well, Tunisia didn't man mark him, so he got his head up and played some lovely passes, especially in the first half. Hope Southgate gives him a bit more help around him against the better sides though.

That's what i meant by a more positive role.

Hendersons thinking was much more positive than usual. His positioning (or role) was almost the same as with us though.

But you're right, i thought he had a good game too and I noticed a difference in him.

Hendersons thinking was much more positive than usual. His positioning (or role) was almost the same as with us though.

But you're right, i thought he had a good game too and I noticed a difference in him.

Does that not maybe add more to the suggestion that he's working to instruction then?

Does that not maybe add more to the suggestion that he's working to instruction then?

I don't think so no.

Only time will tell but if Klopp was happy with hendersons performances then I don't think he'd have spent big on both Fabinho and Keita to completely transform our midfield. Klopp might slowly introduce them into the team like he did with Ox for example, but eventually you would expect that for those sort of fees both players will be in klopps 11 which means no room for Hendo.

There is more competition for hendersons shirt in the England squad and the performance he gave on Monday suggested he is fighting for his shirt.

At Liverpool we haven't had a DM for a number of years now and the role was kind of dumped on henderson. There has been no competition for places. Perhaps now with Fabinho at the club we will see better performances from him and all of his safe, negative, five yard passes will turn into much quicker and sharper forward passes that we saw on Monday.

Like I said above though, It was only Tunisia and one game isn't going to change my mind on him.  Henderson has a very long way to go if he is going to take a shirt off either Keita or Fabinho.

What annoyed me is hendo in some quarters wasn't actually judged on his performance,  some stuff i saw on twatter about sideways passing and matt law in the telegraph saying that southgate was wrong in choosing henderson over dier. He is never going to be a world beater but he was certainly one of England's better performers.  Can we do better,  yeah but judge on performance not reputation or what you feel about him personally.

My only real issue with Hendo for Liverpool is that I feel he reins some of our players in too much. It's not as simple as just saying that he plays a lot of short backwards passes in his role, but it's that his influence on other players tends to limit their creativity too. And I'm talking about in those majority of games where opponents have most players behind the ball and seem content to have us dominate possession.

The directive from him seems to be to keep shifting the ball side to (which we were doing way too sluggishly more often than not too). As much as I want us to dominate possession, I'd rather only have 60-65% of it in those games (compared to often 70%+) if it meant we were constantly changing up the tempo and directness of our attack to keep opposing defenders guessing, and to occasionally draw them out more).

The only way we can do so is to allow our players (especially the other two mids, but also the FBs) to run at defenders and attempt some riskier passes more often. Chances are that even if we do not create a decent chance on goal and end up losing the ball, we'll regain possession against those teams within half a minute, maybe a minute at worst.

I'd much rather that then frequent periods of shifting the ball side to side slugishly for 3+ minutes before not necessarily creating a decent chance at the end anyway. There were some games last year where our opponents barely touched the ball for long stretches yet we barely actually threatened their goal.

So yeah, I do feel that Hendo has been a major factor behind that lack of productivity from what I've seen of how he admonishes players and gesticulates in a match. I don't know if it's a trust thing. Since Coutinho left (and Lallana was injured for much of the season), did he just not trust the others to take opponents on more and instead consistently demanded recirculation of the ball. Is that fair on the others? I'm not sure.

I think with Keita and Fabinho in the mix their will be an overall improvement but against those lesser teams I still have some concern over who will have the ability/courage/authority to take on slightly complacent and out of position midfielders, or play that cheeky chip over the top to a player not being tracked.

Ideally, that's where a Fekir, or Harit, or someone of that creative quality will be critical for us. And I think Hendo wouldn't (perhaps couldn't) stifle such players from breaking a game open by taking educated risks. Overall, I still believe Hendo can make a really positive contribution for us pushing for silverware. Not sure if that will include keeping Fabinho away from eventually making that DM spot his own. We'll see!

What annoyed me is hendo in some quarters wasn't actually judged on his performance,  some stuff i saw on twatter about sideways passing and matt law in the telegraph saying that southgate was wrong in choosing henderson over dier. He is never going to be a world beater but he was certainly one of England's better performers.  Can we do better,  yeah but judge on performance not reputation or what you feel about him personally.

To top everything off i have just read an article by sone crayon licker (stuart brennan) in the Manchester evening news essentially blaming Henderson for sterling's inability to score for england, the headine said something like it's lfc's problem not mcfc's. Won't give it the dignity of posting it here. Describes Henderson as a good pro but like a glass of water, whatever that means

To top everything off i have just read an article by sone crayon licker (stuart brennan) in the Manchester evening news essentially blaming Henderson for sterling's inability to score for england, the headine said something like it's lfc's problem not mcfc's. Won't give it the dignity of posting it here. Describes Henderson as a good pro but like a glass of water, whatever that means

wonder how Henderson is to blame for Sterling falling over his own feet and completely missing an open goal .
Same with Stones he had the goal in front of him and completely lashed it wide. The measure of quality is when players find themselves in these situation they don't panic and just lash out.
I saw one comment saying Jordan's shoulders are too narrow.
Jürgen picks him if he is fit I trust Jürgen.

Get the feeling these commentators are watching a different F***ing game to me with all these negative comments about the lad.
Far as I'm concerned he didn't put a foot wrong and his long range distribution was faultless, had a good game.

Doesn't surprise  me that after one England game some quarters of the press have already got the knives out  regarding hendos performance  absolute sh*te in my book.

My only real issue with Hendo for Liverpool is that I feel he reins some of our players in too much.

He didn't do that good a job of reining players in last season considering we scored well over 100 goals.

He didn't do that good a job of reining players in last season considering we scored well over 100 goals.

Oh we won a trophy for that? Last time I checked we came 4th. Last time I checked we had lost 5 and drew 12 games, despite only being outplayed maybe 4 or 5 games max last year. Am I supposed to be happy with that? Am I also supposed to be happy that such an ordinary Man Utd side obtaining 6 more points than us?

Since you clearly didn't care to read all my post (or perhaps just don't aspire to more than scoring 100 goals and scraping into CL qualification), I'll spare both of us a lengthy reply.

But if we want to be actual title contenders, we must learn from our deficiencies last year, no? For example, we can't have 62% of the possession against West Brom, but only manage 3 shots on target and a draw. We can't have 72% of the possession against Stoke City, but only manage 2 shots on target and a draw. 63% of the possession against Everton, 3 shots on target and a draw. 68% of the possession against Newcastle, 2 shots on target and a draw.

And so on. You get the point? These kinds of games were the differences between us challenging for the title and being 25 points behind the winner. I'm not here to bash on Hendo. I am just saying that especially in games where we're dominating possession against lesser teams, Hendo has an influence on us not sacrificing a small fraction of that possession for a little more cutting edge, and therefore perhaps some more clear cut chances.

But hey, you're more than welcome to be satisfied with what we've achieved, or think that it will magically improve by doing little different.

Oh we won a trophy for that? Last time I checked we came 4th. Last time I checked we had lost 5 and drew 12 games, despite only being outplayed maybe 4 or 5 games max last year. Am I supposed to be happy with that? Am I also supposed to be happy that such an ordinary Man Utd side obtaining 6 more points than us?

Since you clearly didn't care to read all my post (or perhaps just don't aspire to more than scoring 100 goals and scraping into CL qualification), I'll spare both of us a lengthy reply.

But if we want to be actual title contenders, we must learn from our deficiencies last year, no? For example, we can't have 62% of the possession against West Brom, but only manage 3 shots on target and a draw. We can't have 72% of the possession against Stoke City, but only manage 2 shots on target and a draw. 63% of the possession against Everton, 3 shots on target and a draw. 68% of the possession against Newcastle, 2 shots on target and a draw.

And so on. You get the point? These kinds of games were the differences between us challenging for the title and being 25 points behind the winner. I'm not here to bash on Hendo. I am just saying that especially in games where we're dominating possession against lesser teams, Hendo has an influence on us not sacrificing a small fraction of that possession for a little more cutting edge, and therefore perhaps some more clear cut chances.

But hey, you're more than welcome to be satisfied with what we've achieved, or think that it will magically improve by doing little different.

So that was your take away from his post? He clearly just disagrees with Henderson being the issue with us not scoring in the games you mentioned, seeing as we scored well over 100 times and I wholeheartedly agree.

Let's go over the games you mentioned and see what the real issue was, because it sure as hell wasn't Henderson.

West-Brom: well that's funny, he didn't even play in that game. Unless you mean the 2-2 draw? Then we still managed two goals and I'd say the issue was defensively, not offensively.

Stoke: could it be that it was down to Gomez and Moreno starting, both returning from injury, Alexander-Arnold playing next to him in midfield and Ings playing in the front three? Not exactly our strongest starting eleven.

Everton: a front three of Ings, Solanke, Mane and Klavan playing at LB. I'm sure the lack of goals was due to Henderson 'reining in' his fellow teammates. Or do you mean the 1-1 at Anfield? The game where we were up 1-0 and only drew because Calvert-Lewin decided to dive and get a penalty?

Newcastle: we all know how we conceded that goal and the amount of chances we missed. We could've easily won that game.

You say you're not here to bash Henderson, yet not a single game you mentioned was drawn due to Henderson 'reining in' his teammates or us dominating possession too much. We created plenty of chances in all of those games and the goals we conceded, we're stupid ones to concede.

You say that 'the directive from him seems to be to keep shifting the ball side to side'. Are you sure that's his directive? Because I think it's Klopp's directive to keep stretching play. Don't you think Klopp would be raging on the touchline if Henderson was asking his teammates to just dominate possession without purpose? Klopp always mentions being patient, waiting for the right moment, keeping the ball moving. That's the exact opposite of trying to dribble players with the chance of losing the ball when our whole team is high up the pitch.

The issue with your idea of allowing both fullbacks and both other midfielders to go forward, is that we will only have three players behind the ball, leaving us wide open for counterattacks. One fullback needs to stay behind or level with the ball, same with the player in the #6 position (usually Henderson) and he has to play it 'safe'. You can't be too adventurous with your passing in that position. His job is to shift play, keep the game ticking and try to avoid counterattacks.

You draw out defenders by good movement and quick passing, not by trying to dribble past your direct opponent, you'll run into the next one who comes out the shape and the opposition will just shift and fill in the empty space. Movement is down to the attacking players and the fullback joining the attack, not Henderson.

So that was your take away from his post? He clearly just disagrees with Henderson being the issue with us not scoring in the games you mentioned, seeing as we scored well over 100 times and I wholeheartedly agree.

Let's go over the games you mentioned and see what the real issue was, because it sure as hell wasn't Henderson.

West-Brom: well that's funny, he didn't even play in that game. Unless you mean the 2-2 draw? Then we still managed two goals and I'd say the issue was defensively, not offensively.

Stoke: could it be that it was down to Gomez and Moreno starting, both returning from injury, Alexander-Arnold playing next to him in midfield and Ings playing in the front three? Not exactly our strongest starting eleven.

Everton: a front three of Ings, Solanke, Mane and Klavan playing at LB. I'm sure the lack of goals was due to Henderson 'reining in' his fellow teammates. Or do you mean the 1-1 at Anfield? The game where we were up 1-0 and only drew because Calvert-Lewin decided to dive and get a penalty?

Newcastle: we all know how we conceded that goal and the amount of chances we missed. We could've easily won that game.

You say you're not here to bash Henderson, yet not a single game you mentioned was drawn due to Henderson 'reining in' his teammates or us dominating possession too much. We created plenty of chances in all of those games and the goals we conceded, we're stupid ones to concede.

You say that 'the directive from him seems to be to keep shifting the ball side to side'. Are you sure that's his directive? Because I think it's Klopp's directive to keep stretching play. Don't you think Klopp would be raging on the touchline if Henderson was asking his teammates to just dominate possession without purpose? Klopp always mentions being patient, waiting for the right moment, keeping the ball moving. That's the exact opposite of trying to dribble players with the chance of losing the ball when our whole team is high up the pitch.

The issue with your idea of allowing both fullbacks and both other midfielders to go forward, is that we will only have three players behind the ball, leaving us wide open for counterattacks. One fullback needs to stay behind or level with the ball, same with the player in the #6 position (usually Henderson) and he has to play it 'safe'. You can't be too adventurous with your passing in that position. His job is to shift play, keep the game ticking and try to avoid counterattacks.

You draw out defenders by good movement and quick passing, not by trying to dribble past your direct opponent, you'll run into the next one who comes out the shape and the opposition will just shift and fill in the empty space. Movement is down to the attacking players and the fullback joining the attack, not Henderson.

Was about to reply but you've saved me the bother mate.

Good post.

Jürgen keeps playing Henderson when fit and available and he obviously plays to the instruction of the manager.

Some people just don't like Jordan Henderson for some weird reason.