Henderson reclaims liability tag as last season's Chelsea heroics fade
When his first touch simultaneously killed the momentum of Gary Cahill's hacked clearance and shifted it out of his feet, there was only one thing on his mind. It was an audacious effort reserved for the most confident and in-form players, and Jordan Henderson, with a string of screamed expletives coming from his broad gob and his chest pumped out like Popeye after a spinach binge, could've carried all of his teammates on his back during his celebration.
It was a resplendent finish. He wrapped his foot around the ball to send it dipping and gyrating through the London night and into the very top corner, far beyond 6-foot-6 Thibaut Courtois' reach. Liverpool won 2-1 in its first meeting with Chelsea last season, and was deemed by many as a better bet than the Blues for the 2016-17 Premier League crown.
That title challenge fell short and this Saturday's opponent Chelsea took it, but Henderson was pardoned from any responsibility. Whoever was entrusted with goalkeeping duties on a given day - either Simon Mignolet or Loris Karius - frantically flapped like a blackbird that'd accidentally flown through the bathroom window. Alberto Moreno's bursts down the left opened up vast meadows for right-wingers to joyfully skip down, and Dejan Lovren was, well, Dejan Lovren.
Henderson was protected by being a statistician-era footballer. The number-crunchers said his short transfers of possession or the sweeping, diagonal deliveries to unleash the likes of Sadio Mane tended to be precise. Whenever someone voiced criticism of his habit of slowing matches down with weary five-yard passes, a trail of sympathisers would reel off some of his passing statistics like desensitied auctioneers.
Then the debate swung hugely in favour of Henderson's detractors in Tuesday's 3-3 draw at Sevilla. The 27-year-old couldn't keep the ball in Andalusia, and had more chance of winning a raffle at a corrupt-period FIFA event than a tackle.
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"We didn't play as much football as we should have," Henderson admitted to the Guardian's Andy Hunter post-match. "The biggest thing for us was that we stopped playing, stopped getting the ball up to the front three. They were getting it back cheaply and it invites pressure."
The slew of damning numbers from Henderson at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan take some pawing over. Philippe Coutinho's 62 minutes on the pitch also attract blame, but his similar passing accuracy to Henderson's is less alarming as it's his duty to gamble in possession. As the deepest midfielder in Jurgen Klopp's formation, Henderson should be dictating tempo and keeping the ball. He should definitely perform a tackle over the course of a match. The captain didn't lead by example by putting his foot on the ball and maintaining control when Liverpool led 3-0, and that supremacy was squandered in a calamitous second stanza.
Examples of Henderson's unsuitability in a role protecting the back-four aren't restricted to one miserable evening on the continent.
The Sunderland academy product couldn't complete a tackle when Manchester City romped to a 5-0 victory over the Reds in September. The following month, he and midfield partner Eric Dier appeared to be wading through a morass of honey and craft glue for England, plodding to a rhythm that was detrimental to pacey trio Marcus Rashford, Raheem Sterling, and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain's work higher up the park against Slovenia. When Klopp hauled off Lovren after 31 minutes of October's 4-1 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool's midfielders continued to be bystanders when the home side counter-attacked. Henderson should've been deployed deeper to help stave off Spurs' surges; he made no interceptions because of his over-adventurous positioning.
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Some of Henderson's below-par showings with Liverpool are undoubtedly Klopp's fault. His skipper is either going against his manager's wishes by shaking off his defensive shackles, or he simply hasn't been given this mandate. The latter would corroborate the English media's obsession with highlighting the defensive frailties of Liverpool, and it would satisfy the high-octane philosophy of the German as his midfield tries to quickly turn defence into attack, rather than simply attempting to keep the ball from the opposition.
Saturday's first meeting of the 2017-18 campaign between Liverpool and Chelsea may require another watershed moment from Henderson to see him rewarded with more patience from the Anfield faithful, and even statisticians. Antonio Conte's new 3-5-2 formation is intended to swarm the middle, and Eden Hazard's mantle behind Alvaro Morata makes him a constant nuisance between the other side's midfield and defence - just where Henderson should patrol.