Jordan Henderson Hits Milestone in Resurgence as Liverpool Win Away to Chelsea

The magnitude of Liverpool’s 2-1 victory away to Chelsea on Friday night cannot be understated, as under the Stamford Bridge lights, Jurgen Klopp’s side continued their excellent start to the 2016/17 Premier League season.

Their fourth away game of the league campaign so far, Liverpool looked to build on their emphatic 4-1 win at home to travelling champions Leicester City the previous weekend—and in holding on after a bright start, they did just that.

Efforts from Dejan Lovren and Jordan Henderson gave Klopp’s Reds a two-goal lead heading into half-time. The in-form Diego Costa then hit his fifth strike of the season just before the hour mark to set up a tense finale in south-west London, but Liverpool produced a stoic defensive display to seal the three points.

They have now taken 10 points from their first five league games this season, including away clashes with Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea. Defeat to Burnley in August serves as the only major blot on their copybook so far:

Arsenal (A), Premier League: 4-3 win Burnley (A), Premier League: 2-0 loss Burton Albion (A), EFL Cup: 5-0 win Tottenham Hotspur (A), Premier League: 1-1 draw Leicester City (H), Premier League: 4-1 win Chelsea (A), Premier League: 2-1 win

After finishing the 2015/16 season in eighth place, that Liverpool head into the weekend in fourth, level on points with Chelsea and Everton and behind only Manchester City, is a major improvement, and symbolic of this resurgence in Klopp’s first full season as Reds manager is Henderson.

The Liverpool captain, who endured a miserable campaign last time out, is looking to restore his reputation—and five games into the league season, he has reached another milestone in his quest to achieve this. 

With the departure of Steven Gerrard to LA Galaxy last summer, Henderson headed into 2015/16 with the increased burden of assuming the role of Liverpool captain on a full-time basis—having spent much of the 2014/15 deputising for the Reds legend, who struggled with injury and an understandable decline in form.

Compounding this, however, were a host of fitness issues for Henderson himself, with heel, foot and knee problems limiting him to just 26 appearances and only 15 starts in the league, leading to questions over his suiting the position of Liverpool’s standard bearer.

But speaking candidly to reporters at the beginning of September, the midfielder stressed that he was capable of recovering from “a very difficult time” in his career:

The biggest thing for me last season was not the captaincy but not playing regularly. When you’re not playing it is difficult to feel that you are the leader of the team. You want to help but I couldn’t. That’s a big difference with this …

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