Jordan Henderson

Jordan Henderson
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Jordan Brian Henderson





Current Club: Liverpool.

Previous Clubs: Sunderland.

Loan Clubs: Coventry City.





International: England 48 caps.

Trophies Won: League Cup 2012.





Back when he was with Sunderland, Henderson was an all-action, non-stop running midfielder, who had actually to find his niche in a team. Joining Liverpool soon after, he was used in multiple positions which meant he struggled to establish himself, especially with the fans getting on his back, and that took some time for him to do. He took over the captaincy of Liverpool and settled into a central midfield box-to-box role, only for injuries and a change of system saw him moved into a new role.



Now he mostly plays in a holding role in front of the back four. No longer is his game revolving around bursting forward, though there are odd occasions when he still does make a charge up the pitch, his role is about reading the game and shutting down opposition attacks, as well as getting on the ball and getting the ball moving.



It is all about reading the game, something he is very good at, and getting in the way of opposition attacks to break them up or filling in gaps to protect the backline. Henderson's constantly swivelling head, which is always looking around him, is a big help in that role, making sure he is very rarely caught out by men running on his blind side.



He lacks the pace he once had, meaning that he can be caught out by sheer pace, using something as simple as a push and run beyond him. However he does tend to use the tactical foul well to stop that happening. His passing range is there, he can play the 50 yard pass when it is available, but usually settles for the quick, short pass to keep the ball moving, which leads to a lot of criticism of him.



However, the problem is that Henderson is usually getting on the ball with time to pick a pass when the opposition have dropped back deep and settled in, so there are very few options for a creative pass from his area of the pitch. If he was ten yards higher up the pitch, then he could look for the slide into the box ahead of him. Similarly to Jorginho, he is just playing too deep for genuinely constructive passes, except for the switch of play, most of the time.



Now he is mainly there to protect the back four and cover to allow the full backs to charge forward at will, and he does that well. His positional sense is excellent and he is also becoming more influential as a leader, something that was a weakness of his captaincy in the past at Liverpool, where he had been overshadowed within the club by the legacy of Steven Gerrard.



One of the things he does well is defend well at set pieces, where he is very good at getting in the way of balls into the box. He is surprisingly good in the air, at least defensively anyway, not so much when it comes to the attacking third, where he lacks a real cutting edge with feet or head. Often marking big centre backs but Henderson is able to give them a genuine battle for the ball.





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