I came across this on you tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE9T46YamvQ&feature=g-vrec Shows Henderson's strength well. I believe he will do very well in our new system.
Whilst there are some lovely passes in this clip, sort of sums up Hendo's season really. What really amounts to 2 and a half minutes or real footage of a player that played a huge amount of minutes in a very dominant side for much of the season! For me it only validates my existing opinion of him; potential but tends to go missing for large parts of games!
90% of the season he was played out of position though, he is just a kid still and it must have been daunting being played out wide week in week out when the results aint going our way
sounds like lucas style criticism to me. the kid is very good and needs to be brought on is all. its not like n'gog who you could see was muck on a stick. the kid clearly has all the individual attributes required to be a top player but need to bring it all together to be a consistent performer. Henderson and shelvey are not england captains at underage for nothing guys. we could be onto a top midfield in a few years time.
He is a very talented player, but he's still young. People tend to forget that even last season he progressed a lot, and is still to progress further. The only unfortunate thing is that when we're not in control of the game, he's not very effective. He needs forwards and wingers to be running up field, and thankfully that's the kind of system that Rodgers employs. If he is played in the Allen role next season; I think we will see big things from him.
my opinion of 4-3-3 and how henderson could fill in nicely is that if he plays right side of the three he could be really effective linking with suarez and johnson.... he needs to learn how to step in and cover johnsons going forward and just keep with play. i think he could do really well in that formation and in 2 years time we could see a team with henderson lucas and shelvey as the trio.
He has potential no doubt. What is he 21? 22? Captain of the England under 21 team, clearly shows he has potential. I think the problem was that he was never meant to be 1st choice this season and had Gerrard/Lucas been fit for the whole season he would have been a squad player getting 30 or so games the season and still developing. However because of the injuries he was thurst into the firts team and couldn't handle the pressure every week. No doubt, this season and next he'll start showing his true potential. What really stood out for me was his through balls. There are about 4 or 5 clips of first time through balls which put players into a goal scoring / decent crossing position.
Good points! Certainly was under huge pressure last season and in lots of ways handled it very well, whether he has the mental attributes to be a top, top player remains to be seen!
he's turned 22 in june so he's just graduated the u21 team and got selected (rightly or wrongly) for england. hard worker is what impresses me most and gives me confidence he will be a good player.
Don't misunderstand me I do think he has potential and in many ways he handled himself very well last season. However one of those ways was certainly not in taking on some responsibility, for me he went missing way too often and at the same time he played way too many easy balls at times in a team needing inspiration from somewhere. I am yet to be convinced if he has the psychological attributes to really be a top player, I feel this may possibly one of the reasons Fergie declined the opportunity, because he was certainly interested in him at some stage. I know he is still young but in some ways as the saying goes, 'the young uns have less fear'.
asking a then 21 year old to do the inspiring is a big ask. not sure i can name many 21 year olds who've inspired a team like that and frankly gerrard had a lot better around him pulling together when he was 21.... (2001) If we've a settled quality team he'll shine... hell lucas at 21 had alonso and mascherano around the place... lets just hope he develops like lucas cos he works as hard as him.
Not expecting him to be the leader, however I feel to an extent he shirked responsibility at times last season(same as Downing, although yes Downing being the more mature was much worse).
maybe so, that's a way of putting it... the way downing was so negative was very obvious. The way i think about it is how lucas would burst into life for one move then vanish for half the game when he was 22. I think Henderson has to get into the games for sure.... shirking or just not being central to things is a matter of opinion which is fine.
I remember that Blackburn game, maybe playing at RB he had no pressure and we were down a player, but he was an absolute boss that game.
