I thought he played really well, he was strong in the tackle, won his fair share of headers, picked up a lot of second balls, tidied up for young Trent on a couple of occasions when he got caught out of position or lost the ball and with the ball I thought he was neat and tidy. We looked so dangerous going Forward that there really wasn't the need for him to be anymore than that with the ball, not with a Coutinho, Salam, Mane and Firmino front four ahead of him.
Henderson and Can shouldn't ever play in the same team together for me, has to be one or the other. I liked the balance of the team today with Coutinho in the deeper role.
Yeah I remember him covering for Trent on one occasion especially and the commentator chose that occasion to chirp in and say how well he was playing. It was late on in the first half, not sure if it was before or after we'd scored but this is the thing. When you say that we didn't need him to play better going forward, rather than keeping it ticking, is part of the problem with Henderson that gets repeated time and again, fair enough after the first goal went in we didn't but before that he was the point at which many of our attacks were breaking down. Constant long balls to nobody in particular, I remember him popping up on the right hand side and hitting the first man with his cross, being totally useless apart from perhaps one ball that Mane might have latched on to.
After that, when we have the lead then I think his responsibility becomes much more about the defensive side of the game but when the opposition are sitting in and have no ambition for attacking as Saints seemed to have then he is the player gifted the most time and most freedom with the ball and at that point his responsibility for influencing the attacking game and picking insightful or tempo raising passes becomes much more important and frankly he failed miserably. So much so that I remember LondonRed suggesting we should sub him after the first half-hour and I totally agreed with him. After that, the fact he mopped up a bit and won a few headers really doesn't interest me too much because we had then opened them up and our front 4 took over the game.
Giving Hendo much credit against an attack as impotent as Saints was today also seems like searching for praise rather than earning it. He put in one challenge to help Trent out and I heard him being Vocal to Mo to help Trent out on the odd occasion, that's about the best things he did all game.
I do agree Henderson and Can should never play together, a point PurpleMonkey has made many times as they take each other's space far too often and rather than complementing each other they become counter-productive. That in itself should show that Henderson in a team without creativity becomes part of the problem than the solution which is essentially the point I was making about the first 30 minutes. Anyone but him on the ball in space would be an improvement and for a player who plays in midfield that should never, ever be the case. (Mignolet obviously excluded, I'm just thankful when he manages to get the ball over the half-way line).
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