I said he made alot of forward passes, not many of them (the more speculative ambitious ones) came to anything, not even possession being kept. He did however play a lovely pass for the OG, as I said. Hendo probably gives the ball away less, but is overly conservative with his passing. We all know that.
I counted too. He played 13 passes forward with his feet, 7 successful (four or five of which were less than 10 yards, one great nutmeg, the rest under little pressure), and 6 resulted in us losing possession. If you want to split hairs.
He's doing well, I just don't think that video is anything to be particularly wowed by, it's promising like but lets not start overstating things yet.
The fact he lost the ball shows the risk he took with his passing.
What I liked more than anything in that video was the speed he made his passes. And the fact he was looking forward most of the time.
Some of the passes he made that were unsuccessful was because our forward players weren't expecting the ball and were a little slow to react.
Henderson takes 2 or 3 touches to bring the ball under control and then makes a forward pass.
There are times that he SEES the right pass forward in between 2 midfielders, into the forwards feet, but he BOTTLES IT and hesitates, and ends up having to play safe. Fabinho, takes 1 or 2 touches, and actually takes risk when he sees that same pass. So his pass completion rate will always be lower, but no risk, no reward.
Whilst I agree the video above doesn't show a spectacular game, it shows enough of what he does do well. I look the video above and look at a couple specific moments where I don't think Henderson executes the same.
0:18. Fabinho plays a first time, fade away, pass forward from a header back, with the outside of his boot to Salah. He was so confident in his execution, he immediately made a 2nd angle to give Salah a supporting option from behind. Hendo (imo) most likely would let that ball run across his body, and end up playing a pass back to Allison.
0:28. Fab plays a lovely weighted curling pass from the freekick into the channel for Mo. Hendo (imo) would see the movement from Mo, approach the ball as if he were going to make the pass and then stop and apologise to Mo, as he decided it was too much risk at that moment in the game, and end up playing ball into one of our FBs (either one, take your pick). The Bournemouth team and defence, would just slide across in perfect defensive shape and say "thank you Jordan" as they did.
0:51. Ball over the top into Mo. Even though I think it was slightly underhit from Fab (so Mo could run onto it), Jordan (imo) would most likely end up playing safe and out wide in that position. Or take 3 or 4 touches before playing that ball, by which time Mo would be coming back from an offside position.
1:30. Pass that splits Bournemouth's midfield line into Firmino. Again, I think (imo) Jordan sees too much risk in that pass and ends up playing short and safe.
1:44. Fabinho covers ground and blocks a cross from Fraser. Now there is no way Jordan, being so one paced nowadays, gets back at Fraser like that, which means VVD would have had to vacate his position of defending the near post, and Matip would have been left alone to deal with King (whose double movement looks to have beaten him there). The best Hendo (imo) would do in that situation is cover the space VVD left at the near post, if he's quick enough for that and Virgil could delay, or possibly, a cutback to the edge of the box, if he wasn't.
Look, i could go on and further into the video. I don't want to really disparage our captain. He's a decent player and good for games which we want to "kill". But I'm a sucker for technical players (the more Brazilian, the better), and Fabinho, whilst not being the greatest technician (hey, he's being a DM; not all are Alonso/Pirlo types), he does have the touch of a top PL level player. Henderson's first touch is more mid-table PL standard.
People talk about Gerrard's slip being the reason we didn't win the PL under Rodgers. I've always disagreed. I think we lost it against City, when Hendo's first touch let us all down and got himself sent off (never mind that twat Moses!):
