Henderson grateful for Gerrard example

15 October 2014 04:16

Liverpool's Jordan Henderson said he was thankful for playing alongside Steven Gerrard as the former England international celebrated 11 years as captain of the Anfield club on Wednesday.

Gerrard, writing on Instagram, said: "11 years ago today I became the captain of my boyhood team one of the proudest days of my career. It's a huge honour to captain this great club £YNWA (You'll Never Walk Alone, the club's unofficial motto)."

It appears Henderson, now Liverpool's vice-captain, is being groomed to one day take over the armband but he insisted on Wednesday he was happy to have Gerrard as his skipper for a while yet.

"Stevie's probably not only the best captain for Liverpool and before with England, but in the game itself," Henderson told the official Liverpool FC magazine.

"Being around him has benefited me a lot. It's been huge. Every day I watch him.

"It's his desire to improve. He's been the best and most influential player here for such a long time but he still wants to get better.

"He takes training really seriously and sets the tone for how things should be. Everyone else follows. He does a lot of things that people on the outside don't see."

Henderson added: "On the pitch he's a great leader. You can see the goals, the passes and the tackles he makes; the way he inspires the team.

"But off the pitch he conducts himself brilliantly too. He's a genuinely nice person and everybody in the squad knows they can go to him.

"The most important thing is he puts the team in front of everybody else including himself. The most important thing is the team."

Jordan, who joined Liverpool from home town club Sunderland in 2011 initially struggled with the weight of expectation on his arrival at Anfield but has since become an England regular.

"That was one of the biggest things that I needed to come to terms with when I first came here," the 24-year-old said.

"I was 20, 21 when I joined and when you're young, you can dwell on things quite a lot. It's one area where I've improved a lot," he said.

"At the end of the day you can't change what's happened. You can only influence what happens in the future. As long as you learn from mistakes, you'll be fine.

"When we have a bad result or I have a bad performance, it isn't nice. It hurts, it ruins your evening, but the next day you've got to move on, taking the negatives and the positives."

Source: AFP