Willing to weigh in on this one, considering there are so many spouting vile obsecenties about Henderson - if he's not the right man to do it, well who is?
Admittedly he has not been in his best run of form, but was Gerrard always magic? If you search yourself the answer will reveal that our former skipper also came with his rough patches too, albeit being incredibly gifted as a footballer.
Henderson is a solid midfielder, I'm a fan of his tidying up and little touches that will go over the heads of the anti-hendo clan. Let me go in to the day of the Southampton game - there I was anticipating kick off stood around many other Kopites checking their accumulators and taking a big bite out of their pies. When suddenly I hear "Jordan Henderson is not fit to lace Souness' boots." To a couple of this fellas mates, they were all in agreement.
So what does that mean exactly? In truth, he probably should have said he's not fit to lace Gerrard's. But are we too ahead of oursevles in what we expect in the here and now compared to the days gone by?
What I heard infuriated me and this is the biggest problem amongst our fans (except privileged little fucks with smartphones on twitter who believe they have a validated opinion from watching 2 minute clips) we are simply setting the bar too high, too soon. We must work with what we have, and right now our best leaders aren't house-hold names, Jordan Henderson, James Milner, Adam Lallana. We have had the privilege through the years of some of our best players, as our best leaders. The Hansens, the Dalishes, the Gerrard's, the Souness'. Now the gauntlet falls to an established player within our first team, who is clearly the most equipped for the job. Has been his whole career.
If you're looking for a house-hold name, maybe Coutinho should be your captain, but would he bring leadership? Maybe by example - but is his heart in it? So, so.
So do we bring in another player who could lead? Van Dijk? A future upcoming academy player who knows deep down to his make-up what it is to be a red?
Henderson is fine. We're looking for someone to blame constantly for not being where we want to be, and because the pressure of being Liverpool captain brings, it really is one of the toughest jobs in world football.
What he does to respond to this wide spanning criticism will define Hendo's season, infact - Liverpool career going forward. I'm not always sure he's fully fit to play, and that is the only factor that makes me believe, yes one day it will be someone else. But who?
Answers on a postcard. Gone are the days of Carra, Gerrard, the leaders of this generation gone by, the dawn of the new - possible transition period of our next leaders begins.
Will it be Henderson in 2 seasons time? Maybe. Time will tell. He's going to have to let the results and his future performances be the deciding factor in this.
Jordan Henderson is an important player for us, we should support him, not discourage. That's not who we are. This is not the Liverpool way.
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