Yahoo Finance Why Jordan Henderson is the one Liverpool player Jurgen Klopp would not rest against Southampton
There were plenty of big names who stayed home in Liverpool even for a pivotal match in what might yet become English club football’s greatest season.
Nine changes and no sign at St Mary’s of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk, Sadio Mane or Mohamed Salah but, with Liverpool’s title challenge reduced to a thread by half-time, a familiar face emerged first out of the tunnel.
Jordan Henderson was readying himself on the touchline several minutes before any other player, casually shaking out his legs as if he was preparing for a Sunday morning run-out rather than his 55th match of a history-making season.
It is more games than any other footballer across Europe’s ‘big five’ leagues.
What followed was trademark Henderson and, in its understated influence, a typically fulsome explanation for Klopp’s decision. It was also a perfect endorsement for the thesis, outlined in the book The Captain Class, that followed more than a decade of research into the greatest sports teams in history.
Sam Walker, a journalist from the Wall Street Journal, studied hundreds of the most successful sides from across numerous sports and surprised even himself at the discovery of the single most identifiable trait. No, it was not an outstanding individual player or a particularly inspirational coach (although they were predictably also often evident) but a captain of vast character and substance.
Seldom, stressed Walker, were they anything like the most talented player but they amounted to the manager’s dressing-room proxy in the way that they always put team before individual and inspired standards that were transformative to the group. Extreme doggedness was invariably the outstanding trait.
The book was written in 2017 and the footballing examples ranged from Carles Puyol, Graeme Souness, Philipp Lahm and Roy Keane to Billy McNeill, Franco Baresi, Didier Deschamps and Antonio Conte.
Henderson, indisputably now among the great leaders in both Liverpool and Premier League history, has earned his place in such company. With Klopp clearly desperate to protect key players ahead both of Sunday’s Premier League finale against Wolves and then the Champions League final against Real Madrid, the Liverpool captain had begun the match on the bench. He was, though, Klopp’s first change and, with James Milner moving to right-back, took up position in front of centre-backs Joel Matip and Ibrahima Konate. Henderson did not personally offer an obvious creative threat but, as Liverpool gradually took a strangle-hold of the game, he was vital in quietly setting the tempo and nullifying James Ward-Prowse and Ibrahima Diallo. Most noticeable of all was his verbal influence.
Constantly encouraging, challenging, and directing his Liverpool team-mates, his presence provided timely authority, composure and, above all, purpose.
Henderson was interviewed by Sky Sports shortly before the game and, even in a week that had seen become the first Liverpool captain to lift six trophies, was the model of understatement. “I never really think it is about me - it is about the team and what we are achieving," he said. “That's what I tend to focus on more than anything.”
Collective rather than individual milestones were also uppermost on his mind at the final whistle and the prospect of a dramatic final day. “The lads who haven't played as much as they'd like took their opportunity - you need everyone in a Premier League season,” he stressed. Klopp was more effusive, emphasising that the qualities which Henderson so embodies are “not normal” but “special”. He stands as enduring proof, too, that Sir Alex Ferguson, who passed up the chance to sign him some 11 years ago, did occasionally get some major decisions quite spectacularly wrong.
