Assuming we address central midfield in the summer and finally buy a proper defensive midfielder, is Henderson in danger of not really being in the first choice midfield?
A couple of thoughts about him:
He’s obviously in a poor run of form, and has had injury issues. But a midfield of Can and Henderson just doesn’t work. We're crying out for an intelligent, positionally aware ball user to be sitting next to one of them. And to be honest Can is the player with more potential in him, and who could boss a midfield with the right DM next to him.
Klopp looks like he’s going to settle for a 4-2-3-1 system long term. I’ve always been sceptical of Hendo in a 2 man midfield, especially the 4-2-3-1. One of his main assets is his ability to harry opposition defenders, and work tirelessly from one end of the pitch to the other. In a 4-2-3-1 this isn’t really required from your central midfielders. What you need from them is to do their job and control midfield. Henderson is the perfect right sided midfielder in a midfield 3 in a 4-3-3, 4-3-1-2 or 4-3-2-1 but it seems we won’t play that way. Incidentally, his best run of form that won everyone over on him was the run in in 2014, when we were playing a midfield diamond. I can't say that he's ever been good in a 2 man midfield.
Is there a case for moving Henderson into the attacking 3 midfielders? Probably a roaming wide right in the mold of Kuyt. This creates another problem – with Coutinho and Firmino in the 3, Henderson isn’t really the type of player we need on the right. What we would need is a pacy winger, preferably a left footed one who can cut in from the right.
It will be interesting to see what Klopp does, but the way I look at it, he’ll struggle to get into our strongest side next season. Incredibly useful player for the squad though, but would he be okay with that? Controversially, I’ve thought for a while that Henderson’s skill set is better suited to being a full back. But it’s a bit late for that.
Which would beg the question of whether our club captain should be someone who is a rotation player rather than a fixture in the first team.
A couple of thoughts about him:
He’s obviously in a poor run of form, and has had injury issues. But a midfield of Can and Henderson just doesn’t work. We're crying out for an intelligent, positionally aware ball user to be sitting next to one of them. And to be honest Can is the player with more potential in him, and who could boss a midfield with the right DM next to him.
Klopp looks like he’s going to settle for a 4-2-3-1 system long term. I’ve always been sceptical of Hendo in a 2 man midfield, especially the 4-2-3-1. One of his main assets is his ability to harry opposition defenders, and work tirelessly from one end of the pitch to the other. In a 4-2-3-1 this isn’t really required from your central midfielders. What you need from them is to do their job and control midfield. Henderson is the perfect right sided midfielder in a midfield 3 in a 4-3-3, 4-3-1-2 or 4-3-2-1 but it seems we won’t play that way. Incidentally, his best run of form that won everyone over on him was the run in in 2014, when we were playing a midfield diamond. I can't say that he's ever been good in a 2 man midfield.
Is there a case for moving Henderson into the attacking 3 midfielders? Probably a roaming wide right in the mold of Kuyt. This creates another problem – with Coutinho and Firmino in the 3, Henderson isn’t really the type of player we need on the right. What we would need is a pacy winger, preferably a left footed one who can cut in from the right.
It will be interesting to see what Klopp does, but the way I look at it, he’ll struggle to get into our strongest side next season. Incredibly useful player for the squad though, but would he be okay with that? Controversially, I’ve thought for a while that Henderson’s skill set is better suited to being a full back. But it’s a bit late for that.
Which would beg the question of whether our club captain should be someone who is a rotation player rather than a fixture in the first team.
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