England manager Gareth Southgate has heaped praise on Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson after he lifted the Champions League trophy on Saturday.
The former Sunderland man was the first Red to loft the famous trophy aloft after Jurgen Klopp’s team defeated Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 in Madrid, and Southgate clearly rates him extremely highly.
“To have a player like Jordan really sets the standard for what we do,” he told ESPN. “How he prepares for training, how he prepares for matches and the way he lives his life in general — he doesn’t just do his role perfectly, he has a positive impact on others to do the same. You can’t have too many of those players as a manager.
“He has an incredible range of passing, he is intelligent in the way he presses the ball, which is a huge part of the way Liverpool play and he is an excellent crosser of the ball. He was immense with his leadership throughout the tournament [World Cup] despite not wearing the armband. He has such humility and really great qualities as a person, which makes him such a big part of what we do.”
OPINION
Finally Henderson seems to be getting some love. He is such a good professional and a really terrific footballer, so to see him finally getting the praise he deserves is immensely refreshing. The 28-year-old has long had to put up with criticism that he is too passive a player, that he runs strangely and that he doesn’t deserve to be the Liverpool captain. Even throughout this season, when he has been excellent, there have been plenty of Reds fans saying he should be stripped in favour of Virgil van Dijk. Henderson, though, is a born leader. We saw that at the World Cup and we definitely witnessed it down the stretch this term. He was the one who pushed the team on in the Champions League and Premier League, keeping everyone motivated and demanding more from his teammates. He seemingly did the same thing at the World Cup last summer as well. Southgate has clearly always appreciated him, and finally other people are starting to as well.
