Sadio Mané has been speaking to Soccer AM about his Liverpool teammates, and he shared something interesting about Jordan Henderson.
What’s the story?
Well, rather surprisingly, Mané admitted that Henderson won’t move in training if the ball isn’t passed directly to his feet during a rondo.
The Liverpool No.10 said: “When we do a rondo, you have to pass Henderson the correct ball, otherwise he won’t move.”
For those of you who don’t know, a rondo is when one player stands in the middle of a circle, and the others must try to keep it away from them.
For someone like the £20m Liverpool man, who is known for being a workhorse at Anfield, that is interesting to hear.
In our view, Henderson wouldn’t do something like this due to a lack of effort.
We feel it’s more to do with setting the standards at the AXA Training Centre. By not moving to salvage a dodgy pass, Henderson is telling his teammates to sharpen up their passing.
Of course, if something like this were to happen in a game, we’re sure the England international would do his best to make something of it.
Jordan Henderson sets the tone at Liverpool
After hearing what Mané said, it reminded us of a story from Peter Crouch.
The former Liverpool striker told the Daily Mail that Steven Gerrard used to blast the ball at teammates during training to test their touch.
If it was poor, and continued to be poor, you wouldn’t be into the captain’s good books.
Of course, Gerrard wouldn’t do something like that in a game, but training is where mistakes can be made and characters can be built.
Henderson – who took over as captain from Gerrard – could be doing something similar to this by ignoring sloppy passes, in our view.
Whatever the reason, it was certainly an interesting nugget of information from Mané.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
