Taking each game as it comes is the secret to consistent performance according to Jordan Henderson. Should the Liverpool captain have any involvement against Nottingham Forest on Sunday in the FA Cup quarter-final, it will be his 41st appearance of the season – more than any other player in a red shirt. But far from running on empty, Henderson feels motivated and ready to continue the club’s lofty assault on a unique quadruple, as explained in an exclusive interview with the official club website.
Jordan Henderson said: “I feel good, to be honest. I feel ready. I just take it game by game, prepare myself the best way I can to make sure I am in the best shape possible for the next game and take it from there. Obviously training and games can be intense but I think the coaching staff have done really well in using all the squad, tinkering training a little bit to make sure that we feel fresh going into games and giving the lads a little rest period whenever needed. So yeah, I think the majority of the squad has been looking strong and, touch wood, we can continue that right through until the end of the season because we’ll have a lot of games. Hopefully we can have everyone available.”
Champions League adventures and Premier League title races have been the norm under Jurgen Klopp in recent years, but success on the domestic cup front has eluded the German’s era, until now. Having already placed the Carabao Cup on the Anfield mantlepiece, Liverpool now find themselves in the FA Cup quarterfinals, facing Championship opposition, not that Henderson is taking Nottingham Forest lightly.
Jordan Henderson said: “You look at how well they’ve been playing, I think they’ve played a couple of Premier League sides at home – Arsenal and Leicester – and they beat them both, so that just shows how tough it can be going there and how well they are doing. I’m sure the atmosphere will be electric and it’ll be a very tough evening for us as a team but we need to make it tough for them also and at the end of the day, if we do our job like we know we can and perform to the levels that we’re capable of then we should be confident enough to go there and get through to the next round. But yeah, of course it’s never going to be easy and they will make it as tough as possible so we’ve got to be 100 per cent otherwise we won’t get through again to a semi-final.”
Despite enjoying a decorated career at Anfield, Henderson has never won the FA Cup, but he does not see that as any extra motivation for Liverpool to perform well in the competition. His approach may seem conservative, but buying into Klopp’s mentality of working hard all of time has driven the Reds to this point, in what could still be the greatest season in the history of the club.
Jordan Henderson added: “I think you get different challenges throughout the season and it’s how you deal with them, but the thing that doesn’t change is the effort, the work-rate, the attitude that goes into our performances and our games should always remain no matter who the opponent is. And if we play, like I said, to the levels and the intensity that we’re capable of, we should cause them real problems on the night.”
If Liverpool’s quarter-final draw is considered favourable, the same could be said of their Champions League draw, with The Reds avoiding Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and English clubs Chelsea and Manchester City, and instead drawing Benfica. But Henderson made light of any suggestions that the six times champions of Europe have landed and easy tie and called out the team’s Champions League experience as a crucial factor in making it through to the semi-finals.
Jordan Henderson added: “We’re glad to be in the quarter-finals. It’s always going to be tough, to be honest, no matter who you get, so I don’t really look too much at that. Whoever we get, we concentrate on that and we give it everything like we always do. Benfica will obviously be another difficult opponent, they knocked Ajax out of the last round, who I think were unbeaten up until that point and away from home as well they won. So it’ll be a tough test for us again but it always is in the Champions League, especially in the knockout rounds. A lot of us have experienced big Champions League games over the last few years, for sure. But we know they’re never easy, we know that they’ll be always tough opponents who will give everything – like I said, especially in knockout rounds. So we need to be at our best if we want to go through to the semi-final.”
