Jürgen Klopp Praises Jordan Henderson’s Centre Back Transformation

Is there anything Jordan Henderson can’t do?

He’s reinvented himself so many times that it feels he could just achieve whatever was asked of him. And now here he is, playing at centre back. Jürgen Klopp is understandably pleased about his adaptation.

“He could but we should not forget Hendo is actually a No.8, so that makes [his position change] even more special”, the official Liverpool site report the manager as saying. “He is a No.8 transformed into a No.6, transformed into a No.4. He can play all these positions,” said the manager.

“The first thing that says is about how football smart Hendo is. His physical skills are obvious, but how football smart he is because they are completely different positions, especially to the No.8.

“I think there are some teams who play with a No.6 that deep that it is kind of a three in the back rather than proper wing-backs and a No.6 that deep. We never played like this, but that would make the transition really easy. We play with a No.6 in a different way, that’s how it is. He did really well.

“I wish him a long career as well and I wish he can have a word in which position he will finish his career. But centre-half is one of the positions he can play. Thankfully for us he can play that.

“It was a good game [against Tottenham] again he played. What makes it so exciting is, with his football skills, he can be very influential in our build-up as well. That helps obviously. He had a big hand in the first goal, a nice little chip for Sadio and then the square pass for Bobby. That was good.

“Hopefully he can stay fit until he is 43, then he can play football until that age!”

Look, no one wants to see Henderson play centre back. But he’s doing a very admirable job of that, so may it continue until we please have some actual players fit to play there.