Jordan Henderson is making Anfield nervous

At a point in the season when Liverpool’s home atmosphere could prove pivotal, the selection of Jordan Henderson is setting the Anfield crowd’s nerves on edge.

In Jurgen Klopp’s first press conference as Liverpool manager, he famously talked about turning the club’s fans into “believers.” Although he’s unlikely ever to confirm it while he remains in charge there, in many quarters this was taken to be a reference to the often uneasy relationship between the Liverpool team and the Anfield crowd.

It begins as a collective sigh or three and builds from there, sometimes degenerating into a toxic closed loop that neither party seems able to extricate itself from – and one that Liverpool’s goalkeepers in recent seasons have proven especially prone to succumbing to.

And while there’s certainly more noise and conviction at Anfield these days than when Klopp arrived, it’s nonetheless true that the home crowd remains prone to the jitters when things aren’t going well. This was embodied to a horribly conspicuous degree in today’s game against Tottenham by the display of Jordan Henderson.

Before we move on to look at Henderson’s misfortunes this afternoon, though, it’s only right that we remind ourselves of the good things that the much-maligned Wijnaldum/Henderson/Milner midfield has achieved this season.

This is the midfield that saw Liverpool inflict the only defeat Paris Saint-Germain suffered in all competitions from Aug. 2018 to Jan. 2019. And that same trio were also the bedrock of the impressive home win over Napoli in December that secured Liverpool’s progress to the Champions League knock-out rounds.

What has changed between then and now, of course, is the emergence of Fabinho as exactly the kind of commanding specialist defensive midfielder that Liverpool fans have been dreaming about for a good few years.

The Brazilian didn’t make his first league start until November, in fact, but his stock has been deservedly rising ever since. That’s why reactions among Liverpool fans to Henderson’s inclusion in the starting XI today tended to range from disappointment to disbelief.

And it’s impossible to believe that Henderson himself isn’t aware that a significant proportion of the crowd doesn’t think he should be starting or – far more importantly – that this doesn’t sometimes have an effect on his on-field displays.

Indeed, which club captain wouldn’t struggle with the sense that a large number of said club’s fans think you shouldn’t be on the pitch?

If Henderson’s inclusion looked like a mistake on paper when the team-sheets were released, then this was an impression that only became more and more overpowering as the game progressed.

To be clear, what’s being referred to here isn’t the opening 10 minutes of the game, in which it seemed that pretty much all Liverpool’s players had forgotten who their teammates are during the international break.

Instead, it’s the period in the first half when Liverpool were ahead and on top, but proceeded to commit a series of unforced errors that saw the aforementioned toxic loop between fans and players in full effect.

You know things are bad when it begins to affect the normally imperious Virgil van Dijk, who made an inexplicable mistake in the 36th minute that led to a wholly avoidable Tottenham attack.

This might all seem strange to fans of other teams, given that Liverpool’s current run of 37 home games without defeat has only ever been bettered by one side in the history of the Premier League, namely Chelsea’s 86-match stretch from 2004-08. But anyone who watched the first-half today would have seen it for themselves.

Henderson was at the center of this malaise, repeatedly failing to mop up loose balls or win 50/50 tackles. So there was a sense of inevitability when it was he who later needlessly gave away the freekick that led to Tottenham’s opener.

The general consensus is that Henderson is selected by Klopp because of his energy and, above all, his supposed leadership skills. And it’s the latter that seem to be the crux of the issue here.

If the guy you’re putting in the team to calm the nerves of those around him ends up increasing the tension in the crowd — and subsequently appears to succumb to it himself — then your decision is clearly a counter-productive error.

Whether or not Klopp acknowledges this mistake could well decide the fate of Liverpool’s season.