Your rant is a bit O.T.T for me. It's really about midfield balance for me. If you play Hendo, Gigi and Milner together as a 3 you've got three lads who will run all day, they'll mark, track and tackle and recycle the ball but it's all a bit industrial. There's not much magic in that trio, all three of them are 7/10 players (despite a spike in Milner's form in recent months). Now if you play 2 from those 3 and insert Keita into the line-up suddenly it looks a lot better. You've now got hard work, industry & a platform alongside a player who plays on the turn, can pass a ball, can run with the ball and is always forward thinking.
The reason it gets a bit silly for me in this thread is because Henderson and Wjinaldum can both have the same sort of game ie. a bit average, not doing anything of note but you can guarantee it is Henderson who gets the shoeing whilst Gigi barely gets a mention even if he puts in an invisible performance. People like yourself and Ribs are bemoaning the reactions of others (and I know the defences of Hendo can be a bit over the top as well) but you kinda do the same thing in the opposite direction. It just goes to show what a polarizing player he is.
For me, I like the balance and mobility that a midfield trio of Keita, Gigi and Milner gives us right now and that would be my first choice BUT I can also understand Klopp running with Henderson AND Milner together because the back end of last season they were both superb as a tandem (which surprised me at the time). So it isn't about blindly trusting in Klopp but understanding that he (and LFC) have had success with these lads playing together in midfield together and that includes Henderson.
Keita is the star dust that needs to be sprinkled over our 'Steady Eddie' midfield and i'm fairly certain he will be entrenched as the first name on the midfield team-sheet before long. As for Fabinho, I still think he has a little ways to go and am glad Klopp is giving him time to get up to speed with the English game.
It probably appears a little OTT but that's only because after watching him perform poorly on Saturday and being very frustrated with him, I come on here and see his supporters defending him once more and it's just annoying. There is no way they can believe he actually had a good game on Saturday so why not just say so? Why not discuss it properly?
I disagree with you that I behave in the same way as them. I have no problem admitting that henderson has played well. The problem is, it's quite rare that he does actually play well. Playing well in my eyes is giving a 8/10 type of performance. Henderson very rarely reaches that mark. When he has 'done ok' and given a 6/10, I'm not going to go out my way and praise him. He's the Liverpool captain and doing just ok with an average 6/10 performance isn't good enough. He has to give 8s every single week. The rest of the team are, but he's not.
Look at this season alone. Milner, Wijnaldum and Keita have all given MOTM performances already. Has Henderson? Then refresh your memory. Look back at last season. Can you ever remember henderson being the best player on the pitch? Refresh your memory further. Can you ever remember jordan Henderson being the best player in any game he's EVER played for us? By all means tell me about them and point out these games.
Is there a way to check how many times henderson won the MOTM poll on this forum last season? I'll be surprised if it's one.
His fans flip that and say 'We understand the job he does for the team, it doesn't matter if he's motm'. Sorry, but that's a load of rubbish. There are players all over the world who play and do the job that henderson does and pick up motm's every week. As stated, wijanldum already has himself this season! So far, gini has been excellent in that role and has performed much better than Henderson ever has to be honest. If anybody disagrees with that then I'm really struggling to understand what they're actually watching whenever we play. I understand people have different opinions but that is one that is just mind boggling to me.
I also agree with heimdall that we actually struggled in midfield last season and a lot was down to Henderson. He did play well on some occasions and he played his part in some great team displays, but I always felt we needed to upgrade if we were going to go from fourth place to first place. Klopp seems to feel the same as he spent big on two midfielders. We needed a keeper, somebody to partner VVD and some real quality in the middle of the park. That's all what we were lacking.
I know city had a freak season but we were nowhere near the title, they were miles better than us. If we're being honest, we had such an easy path to Kiev too and city aside, we were favourites against anyone we played. As soon as we came up against Madrid you saw the difference in class. Forget Karius and his blunders for a second, let's be honest here and admit that our midfield was very poor that night and it got bossed off the pitch. Henderson was completely out of his depth and he's got off with it because of the mess Karius made. Now if we rewind a couple of months and go with gini Milner and Keita against madrids midfield then I don't think we'd have been bossed off the pitch at all.
This season so far I've actually felt like we look like champions but I've only felt that way when Henderson hasn't been in the team! The midfield three of gini Milner and Keita have been exceptional in my opinion and I feel that we have gone up a level and we can seriously challenge for the title now. We have gone from a top four team to a team that can win the title now. Obviously Gomez and Alisson have played a big part in that too.
When Henderson has played then it feels a bit like it did last season. That we're still very good, but we're not quite there. That's how it felt against Chelsea on Saturday. Then the short time Keita was on the pitch and henderson left, we went back to looking like the bollocks again.
I agree with you about the balance and that midfield three was always going to struggle against Chelsea. If, for example, Keita played instead of Wijnaldum then perhaps Henderson would have performed better. We will never know. Some players naturally gel and perform better with others though and that seems to be the case with gini Milner and keita. There is a better understanding amongst them there than whenever henderson plays in my opinion. Or certainly there has been so far anyway.
There may be a lot of games coming thick and fast so a bit of rotation is needed, but in our biggest matches then we simply have to start gini Milner and Keita. If we go into the city game with a different three then it could be suicidal. Id be happy to rest a few at Napoli if it meant we had that midfield for city.